Halo: Noble Spider
by HandAssassinSpider-man
Summary: Peter-B312 has been reassigned to Noble Team shortly before the Fall of Reach begins. He's reunited with an old friend and makes new ones along the way as he and Noble fight to defend the Military HUB of the UNSC. When Reach falls Peter embarks on a journey that will take him to the ends of the galaxy and beyond as he faces ancient foes, make new allies and finds love along the way
1. Chapter 1

This Story is being made at the request of Spider-Ninja0117 and after mulling it over I felt like it'd be an interesting story

Peter Parker or for this story Peter-B312 aka Noble Six will be a Spartan III and will be paired with Catherine 'Kat' B320. Peter will survive Reach, along with Kat and will go on to join the Master Chief in the Halo Games, at least up until the third one. Halo 4, Peter will be doing his own thing but he will take part in the events of the Spartan Ops episodes and as for Halo 5, I'm going to be changing that up, mainly because where I plan to take this story will demand it and because I feel like Halo should have gone this route with how they were starting to set the stage for post Human-Covenant war and where many Spartans-II's were starting to stand, John in particular

Peter's appearance will be the War master helmet, WRATH-Class Mjolnir Chest Piece, DEADEYE-class Mjolnir Shoulder Pieces, HELIOSKRILL-class Mjolnir arm and leg pieces, Dauntless visor from Halo 5, Primary color of Black, and a Secondary Color of White. He'll be a close combat specialist and a heavy weapon specialist meaning his main weapon will be a MA37 Individual Combat Weapon System (MA37 ICWS) with his secondary weapon being two MA37 Individual Combat Weapon System (SMG).

Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo characters seen, mentioned or used in this story

* * *

Reach July 24, 2552, 07:28 hours…

Peter-B312 held in a yawn as he observed his new helmet that went along with his new armor set which was made from several different variants of a prototype being tested out by ONI's special warfare R and D departments. His last Armor set, something that took him years to get right had unfortunately had a rather bad reaction to a couple of pot shots from a Fuel Rod canon attached to a pissed off Hunter and well…

"And it was so much comfier too" Peter said as he placed the helmet on and looked over the passing landscape of Reach, the military HUB of the UNSC, well technically Earth was too, but in terms of ship construction, weapons development and troop training, the Sol system had nothing on Reach, close though

"Sir, we're coming up on the outpost now" the young Army trooper said as he adjusted the speed of the Warthog

"Copy that…" Peter nodded at the man's statement as he looked to see a pair of Falcons that passed over them earlier coming in for a landing

The outpost wasn't too large, only a few hundred square meters and a few small buildings set up with a few trucks scatter about. Peter also made out another Falcon that was already there and had a large armored man sitting in it, based on his height and the fact he was wearing MJOLNIR armor indicated he was a Spartan, a three based on the height

' _Guess he's part of my new team'_ Peter thought as the Warthog came to a stop allowing Peter to climb out "Thanks for the lift Private, I can walk the rest of the way"

"Yes sir" the Trooper nodded before pulling away as Peter made his way towards the temporary command post of this small little outpost

He sent a brief nod towards the helmetless Spartan who was loading a clip to some variant of the Sniper rifle, the man watched him with a narrowed gaze as he continued to load the clip with

Peter entered the small building and was greeted to the sight of another Spartan wearing a EVA helmet with what looked like a skull carved into it and was busy sharpening a knife.

' _How the hell does that guy even see through that?'_ Peter thought with a raised brow under his helmet and was about to enter when a robotic arm attached to a rather attractive woman with short hair, a few faded scars on her face and clad in blue armor stepped in front of him and gave him a sort of narrowed look

Peter couldn't help but feel he's met this woman before as he 'covertly' observed her figure

' _Maybe she was part of my class'_ Peter mused

The woman then looked towards another blue clad Spartan that was speaking to their commanding officer "Commander…"

Carter-A259 looked towards Nobel Team's newest recruit with a critical gaze while the team's lone Spartan-II, Jorge-052, spoke up

"So, that's out new number six"

"What me?" Peter said as he pointed to himself "Nah I'm actually here to tell you guys that he's running late, but's really looking forward to meeting you all"

Jorge chuckled at this "And he's a comedian…perfect"

"I'll be here all week" Peter snickered

"Kat…you've read his file?" Emile-A239 asked already feeling a headache coming on from hearing this man speak

"Only the parts that weren't covered in black ink" Kat said dryly as she observed the Spartan, she knew who it was and was already dreading working with the man aside from the fact he was replacing Thom-A293, mainly because if she's right than Peter hasn't changed since Boot camp _'I can already here the stream of quips and shitty jokes and here I thought Jun was bad enough'_

Carter observed the man for another second before returning his attention to the holographic screen that displayed the image of Colonel Holland, the teams current commanding officer "Anyone claimed responsibility sir?"

"ONI thinks it might be the local insurrection" Holland said with noticeable sarcasm inn his tone "Five months ago, they pulled a similar job on Harmony. Hit a relay to take out our eyes and ears and then stole two freighters from dry dock…that cannot happen here, Reach is too damn important. I want that relay back online Noble One"

"Sir, consider it done" Carter said with a nod as he picked up his helmet while Jorge grabbed his helmet and heavy machine gun and Emile placed his knife back into its sheath and stood up

"Then I'll see you on the other side, Holland out" the Colonel said as he ended the briefing

Carter than turned his attention to his new six "Lieutenant…"

It was then that Peter stepped forward "Commander sir"

"I'm Carter, Noble Team's leader" the Alpha company Spartan said before nodding towards the other three Spartans already exiting the building "That's Kat Noble two, Emile and Jorge, Four and five"

Peter eyed the departing Spartan's and nodded at knowing the names and designations of his new teammates

"Your riding with me Noble six" Carter said as he brushed past Peter while placing his helmet on

Peter quickly followed after the older Spartan and looked to see Emile, Jorge and Kat were making their way to another Falcon that was starting up while he and Carter approached the one that had the other Spartan on it, armed with a Sniper Rifle System 99 Anti-Material

"I'm not gonna lie to you Lieutenant, your stepping in to some shoes that the rest of the squad would rather leave unfilled. Me, I'm just happy to have Nobel back up to full strength. Just one thing, I've seen your file even the parts the ONI sensors didn't want me to, including that bit about 'Project Rebirth'" Carter said as he and Peter boarded the Falcon, Peter sitting across from him and the last Spartan of the group he has yet to be formally introduced to

"I take it you're not that impressed?" Peter asked with a frown, he wasn't upset but he would be lying if he said his pride wasn't a little hurt

"I am, but we're a team" Carter said as he signaled the other Falcon to take off before sitting down himself "That lone wolf stuff, stays behind, clear?"

"Copy that boss" Peter gave the man a two-finger salute as the aircraft lifted off the ground

It was than the final Spartan looked towards Peter "Jun Noble three, welcome to Reach"

"Heh, you're the first guy who's welcomed me to this planet" Peter said

"Great, just don't get attached to me" Jun said with a hidden grin

"Too late, you're my first and now I won't ever let you go" Peter chuckled

" _Nice to see you haven't changed Peter"_ Kat's voice came in over the team's com link

"I thought I recognized you Catherine, been a while yeah?" Peter said as he leaned back in his seat as far as he could and looked over towards the other Falcon and made out Kat's form and waved to it

" _You know this guy Kat?"_ Emile asked

" _We were both part of Beta company, and Jun you'll be happy to know that he's from New Harmony as well"_ Kat said

"Or what's left of it" Peter said with a grim chuckle "Nice to see that Pegasi hadn't killed off my favorite kickass Spartan, well most of her at least"

" _Nice to see you still have your grim humor Peter_ " Kat said with a frosty tone

"I like to think I lightened up over the years Kitty Kat" Peter snickered as he began to use the old nick name the rest of their fellow trainees had called the young woman all those years ago

Kurt thought it was cute while Mendez chewed them out for being unprofessional, Peter was someone that regularly got under Mendez's skin, much to Kurt's and the other instructors amusement

" _Ah I almost forgot about that one"_ Jun said with a chuckle as he looked over towards the other Falcon _"I always wondered why you got angry at Henry every time she said that to you when he worked with us"_

"Wow Kat sounds like you've come a long way in accepting your adorable nick name, too bad poor Tom never saw that fist coming when he first told you about it" Peter said with a shake of his head before he focused his gaze on the lone Spartan-II of the group "So Jorge, how's a Spartan-II end up on a team of…"

Peter chanced a look towards Carter who nodded, signaling that Jorge knows

Peter nodded at that "…a team of Spartan-III's?"

" _You can thank Kurt for that, and a few high-ranking ONI officers. Noble Team has since become one of the UNSC's most valued Spartan fire teams, second only to Blue Team and just above Red. They figured that adding a Spartan-II will improve our performance"_ Jorge revealed as he was making some adjustments to his modified M247H Heavy Machine Gun that's named Etilka

"Well why aren't you in charge then, you have more combat experience then all of us combined, hell you can steam roll through all of us if you wanted" Peter pointed out, even he isn't sure his…special 'enhancements' will be enough against a Spartan-II

" _Not much for leading I'm afraid, never have and never well. Side's Carter's pretty good at keeping everyone in line"_ Jorge chuckled

"Even you?" Peter smirked

" _Now let's not get a head of ourselves_ " Jorge started to laugh

" _Only one person can ever order the big man around like a dog and that's some old child snatching hag"_ Emile said as he was watching the passing landscape of Reach under the two flying Falcons

" _Careful Emile, or else it won't be the Covenant that does you in"_ Kat said as she typed a series of commands on her custom data pad

" _No one would ever know…it'd look like an accident"_ Jorge said ominously which caused Peter and Jun to start laughing over the coms

"I can see it now" Peter said in between chuckles "Emile, dead by falling out of a Falcon at three thousand feet in the air mysteriously"

" _What can I say, I'm clumsy"_ Emile said with a shrug of his shoulders before he zeroed in on Peter's form in the other Falcon _"And I may accidently discharge my weapon in your direction in the future Peter, just word of warning"_

" _Oh god, why did you have to say it like that"_ Kat groaned, much to Emile's confusion

"Well Emile, I can't say I'm not flattered. It's not often a man comes up to me and says his gun will go off in my direction. But if you're expecting anything of the sort in return, you're going to have to buy me dinner first and just warning you now, I'm not cheap" Peter snickered

"You walked right into that one Emile, maybe carving that skull on your helmet wasn't such a good idea, else you would have seen that coming a mile away" Carter said with a laugh

" _It's why you never see him with a rifle or scoped weapon Commander"_ Jorge chuckled _"Man can't see very far and needs to rely on a shotgun to get anything done"_

" _Hey if it works, it works"_ Emile said as he patted his shot gun slung on his back

" _Too bad your charm isn't as effective as your gun and your loads are less than impressive"_ Kat said wryly

"Whoa stop the Falcons, did Kitty Kat just make a funny? Man, you really have come a long way Catherine" Peter said as he shook his head in amusement "And here I thought you'd never get that pole out of your tight still well shaped ass"

" _Excuse me for wanting to excel to the point that I wouldn't be dragged into a suicide mission with the rest of Beta company Peter"_ Kat said with a narrowed gaze directed at Nobel Teams newest addition

"Alright you two lock it down" Carter said in a warning tone, already questioning if having Peter here will be good for the team, or more specifically his sanity _'I can already here the constant chatter of Jun and Peter over the coms and the arguments that sounds more like bad flirting that Kat and Peter will have'_

Poor Carter had no idea…

* * *

And done

So, next chapter Noble team arrives to investigate the downed Relay and make a terrifying discovery that well set in motion events that will change the Human-Covenant War and the galaxy forever

Also, what do you guys think of the team's banter? Tone it down or stick with it, make it seem like this is an actual team of friends and maybe even a sort of family? Also should Kat join Peter and John for the events of the first Halo Game, end up critically wounded and is transferred off Reach and meets up with them before the events of Halo 2, or have her stick with Jun so that way she and him meet up with Blue Team and eventually Peter and John and their sort of rescue party? I'll give you guys until Peter and Jorge head into space to destroy the Super Carrier to decide


	2. Chapter 2

Answers to reviewers' questions or statements:

 **felpere8Ranco:** Peter will have some vague recollection of Kat during their training on Onyx and it will be shown in both flashbacks and through their interactions but it'll be brief considering they were in a class of over three hundred children and not long after they 'graduated' he was taken out of Beta company along with a few other Spartan-IIIs. As for other Marvel characters it's going to be people that would actually exist in this universe like Silver Sable, granted she'd have to be modified like Peter was but she could exist here, people like Sandman or Electro are out though. As for the whole Nobel thing, I actually didn't notice it until you pointed it out and went back and changed it, along with the whole 321 thing, at least I think I got it all, I'll be sure to re-check after every chapter before updating just to be safe

 **justafan** : What is WORM?

Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo characters seen, mentioned or used in this story

* * *

Noble team was silent for over half hour as the Falcons made their way over Reach's mountainous terrain before Carter spoke up "Listen up, Noble Team. We're looking at a downed relay outpost fifty klicks from Visegrad. We're going to introduce ourselves to whoever took it out, then Kat's going to get it back online"

" _Just get me under the hood, Commander_ " Kat said

It was then that Jorge spoke up _"Sir, why would rebels want to cut off Reach from the rest of the colonies?"_

"You get a chance, maybe you can ask them, Jorge" Carter said with a slight shrug

"Hope you've been practicing your bulletinese Jorge, cause these rebels will be speaking plenty of it" Peter chimed in as he drew his MA37 ICWS and checked to see that it was loaded and ready for possible hostile contact "Also they might throw in some rocketism to spice things up"

" _Don't worry, I've been speaking bulletinese since I became a Spartan"_ Jorge said with a chuckle _"I've even taken the opportunity to learn several different dialects since then"_

"Someone's an overachiever" Peter chuckled as he looked out to the cloud covered mountains

" _I'm afraid I'm a bit rusty on mine"_ Jun said with an auditable sigh _"Guess I'm going to have to rely on my rifle to do the talking"_

"Hey if it makes you feel better, I don't know knifeinese" Peter said as he ran a quick last minute diagnostic of his armor

" _I do"_ Emile said fondly as he idly petted his M45 Tactical Shotgun like it was some sort of cat _"Most intimate language you can speak to another being…be they human or Covenant"_

" _And that Emile, is why your still single"_ Kat said before she made a slightly surprised sound

"Kat, everything alright?" Carter looked over towards his second in command

" _No, we've lost our signal to HQ commander"_ Kat responded

"Back up channels?" Carter asked starting to feel uneasy

" _Searching…nada. Can't say what's jamming us"_ Kat said as she tried to reconnect with HQ

"You heard her, dead zone confirmed. Command will not be keeping us company this trip" Carter said as he drew his Designated Marksman Rifle and began to adjust the settings for the scope

" _I'm lonely already"_ Emile said with mock sadness

"How so? You still have your left and right hands" Jun pointed out

"Heh, burn" Peter said with a snort of amusement while Emile extended his middle finger towards Jun and Peter

Peter shook his head in amusement and turned to look out the Falcon to see that they were approaching a small little settlement.

Carter scanned the area beneath them before radioing the pilots "Shoot down attempts are likely, so keep your distance"

"Yes sir" the pilot responded as he raised the altitude of the aircraft slightly and kept a safe distance from the settlement

"Let's stay focused and watch your sectors" Carter advised the team as they observed the area for signs of possible rebel activity

It was then that Peter made out a large structure in the distance, it was a large satellite dish

"I'm guessing that's the communication outpost that's gone quite?" Peter questioned

"Yeah that's it" Jorge responded as he observed the distant structure "Look's to be intact…"

" _For now, anyways…"_ Kat said as she checked her data pad _"Commander, I'm reading a distress beacon, it's coming from the settlement…there"_

A small waypoint appeared on all of the Spartan's HUD's that showed the location of the beacon.

Peter frowned as he made out the burning wreckage of what looked like a Warthog, what variant it was Peter couldn't tell but it looked like it may have been a M12

' _Well that's not ominous'_ Peter thought with a sigh as he drew his MA37 off his back and clicked the safety off

"Could be the missing troops, let's check it out" Carter said as he signaled for the Falcons to land "Put us down on that bluff"

The Falcons began to approach the raised elevation that overlooked the seemingly empty settlement. Peter looked over towards the other Falcon and saw Kat was slapping a extended clip into a MA5K Carbine that had a small reflex like scope on it that helped Kat improve her already deadly aim

"Interesting choice in weapon there Kat" Peter said with a nod towards the firearm used by the UNSC's special forces, the Spartan-III's in particular

" _I like it, it's light and easy to handle"_ Kat said as she checked to make sure her rifle was in working order _"Plus I can add more things to it"_

"Jun I want your eyes in the sky. Let's go Six" Carter said as the Falcon's landed and he and Peter immediately disembarked with their rifles at the ready. Emile and Kat exited their craft while Jorge remained to provide fire support if required

The Falcons quickly rose back into the air as the four-man team of Spartan-III's began to approach the settlement

"Spread out and keep an eye out for hostiles" Carter said as he gestured the team to move towards the structures

"Copy that commander" Kat said

"Understood" Emile responded

"On it boss" Peter said as he maneuvered down the slightly muddied slopes of the hill "Also be aware that the ground is a bit unsteady from the rain so watch your footing, don't want to slip and fall because the mud can't take a couple hundred pounds of whatever metal these things are made of"

"Understood Six" Kat said as she stayed close to Carter while Peter and Emile made their way towards the structures

When Emile was halfway down the hill he quickly made his way to a large rock formation and used a combination of his enhanced speed and strength to climb to the top and give him a good view of the outpost

"Structure point three four looks clear from this angle" Emile said as he scanned the buildings for signs of life

"Normally I'd find that assuring but given this situation I don't like the sounds of a civilian structure being clear on top of our coms being down" Peter said as he hopped over a small boulder and landed in a crouch

" _Could be worse"_ Jun said from the Falcon as he scanned the area with his sniper rifle's scope for any heat signatures

"Commander, the distress beacon is coming just south of here" Kat said as she and Carter made their way down with their own route

"Roger that Kat, eyes peeled Noble" Carter said

Peter was approaching the buildings with his weapon at the ready when he felt a small tingling like sensation at the base of his skull, he stopped dead in his tracks and carefully scanned the area for any signs of hostiles

' _Something tells me this mission isn't going to be as easy as I thought'_ Peter summarized as he tightened the grip on his weapon and entered a small courtyard that had the burning Warthog in it along with several other vehicles that looked like they've seen better days at the scarp yard

The other three Spartans soon entered the courtyard and scanned the area for signs of hostiles or whoever used to live here, including the missing troopers. Peter was nearing the burning wreckage of the warthog when he noticed something under a small piece of burnt wood

He kneeled down and brushed it aside and was greeted to the sight of a small beacon that was definitely not civilian issued

He looked over towards Kat and held the device up "Found the Beacon"

"Can you make out any ID?" Carter asked

Kat took the deceive from Peter and scanned it "No, but given it's military issued, I'd say it belonged to our missing troopers"

" _So where are they?"_ Jorge asked form the Falcon circling above the team

"That there is the million-dollar question Jorge" Peter said as he stood up, again feeling that faint tingling at the base of his skull that's come to associate with danger being close by

Kat who was scanning the courtyard and the destroyed Warthog frowned when she noticed something odd "I don't see any explosive residue…Noble Three can you confirm?"

The four waited a moment as Jun did what Kat asked before speaking _"Negative, area's clean Kat"_

"Could be plasma" Emile threw in his two cents

" _Can't be, not on Reach"_ Jorge said with some doubt

"Not unless these Rebels, assuming that's what we're still dealing with, have weapons from the Covenant. They have been known to trade these things on the Black Market. Maybe this cell got it's hands on some" Peter said as he kneeled down and observed several pools of blood, it looked fresh still

"Then why is there so much blood on the ground?" Kat asked with some confusion "Plasma would have cauterized any hits, but here it looks like someone was gutted"

"Unless our boys here have Brute weapons" Emile said with some disdain "Those things will tear you right up, if they don't hit you somewhere vital it's the blood loss you'll have to worry about"

"From which ones, the spikers or the shots?" Peter asked

"Either, especially with those blades on the end, I'd rather get stabbed by an energy sword than one of those" Emile said

"I'd rather not get stabbed at all if I can help it, but hey when has the universe ever cared about what I want" Peter said with a snort as he felt the tingling sensation at the base of his skull fade meaning whatever threat was nearby was gone now "Well commander, hate to say it but whoever or whatever did this ain't here anymore along with the troopers"

Carter nodded at that "Agreed, alright Noble let's move out"

The four Spartans quickly left the courtyard and made their way into a more open space and saw a path that led to another structure not too far away, half a kilometer at best. Peter's eyes narrowed as he saw more smoke coming from it as well, not as much as the place they just left but far more than what he assumed a fire place could emanate

Kat also saw this and spoke up "Smoke coming from the next structure boss"

"Circle west and check it out" Carter said as he signaled the team to move "Noble Team, you have permission to engage but be selective. We don't need to telegraph our presence here"

"Not that several near seven-foot-tall heavily armed and armored soldiers isn't attention grabbing enough" Peter quipped

"With you Peter they'll probably here your talking" Kat said dryly

"Heeeey I can be quite when I want to!" Peter nearly whined "I just don't want to be a Spartan stereotype is all"

"Spartan Stereotype?" Carter questioned with confusion

"You know, Spartans are supposed to be all quiet and serious, I'm trying to break that trend" Peter said as he and the team carefully neared the structure that looked like it's seen better days

" _Finally, someone understands"_ Jun spoke up over the coms _"The ODST's are allowed to be all talkative, why can't we?"_

" _Because we're supposed to be better than them"_ Jorge said with an audible chuckle

"Well we don't die as often does that count?" Emile asked

"And we do get the better armor which I'm sure the tax payers are just loving us for" Peter said as he neared a corner before he saw something on his motion tracker, two somethings, moving fast and right towards him "Hey I have two-"

Peter didn't get to finish as two large bird like animals emerged from around the corner and brushed past the Spartans like a bat out of hell

"The hell are those?" Peter asked with a quirked brow "They look like those ostriches I saw on an old documentary once"

" _Their called Moa, they were named after an earth based species that was similar to them in appearance when they were first discovered"_ Jorge commented with a distant tone in his voice _"Used to be a small flock of them near my home when I was younger"_

"Are they easily startled?" Peter asked as he followed the team around the corner and down a path way that showed they were on a Cliffside with an old wooden railing near the edge to keep someone from hopefully falling to their death, the view was pretty nice Peter was willing to admit

" _Yes, but their harmless unless you corner one, after that can't say it won't try and peck at you"_ Jorge said

"Good to know" Peter responded as he and the others began to make their way further down the path to a stair case that connected to a cliff side home's balcony

Carter came to a stop just several feet from the house's entrance and held his fist up to halt the rest of the team. He then looked towards Peter

"Noble Six, move into the house, go in quiet. I'm right behind you" Carter gestured to the door way as he checked his weapon

"Aye aye boss man" Peter said as he readied his rifle and flipped it's firing setting to burst, in tight quarters in a civilian home, full automatic might not be the smartest idea at the moment

He slowly entered the space and checked his corners for signs of life, be it the homes residence or something else be it Moa or Rebel. Seeing none he made his way further into the house and up a small stair case that led into what looked like the living room with Carter following close behind

It was then that Peter came to a stop as he saw a large section off the house was missing, exposing a courtyard and another building a few meters away. The hole looked like it was blasted open by something

"Whoever they hired to install a new window, should be fired" Peter commented as he and Carter carefully approached the hole in the building with Kat and Emile bringing up the rear

It was then that Jun spoke up _"Noble leader, I'm seeing heat-sigs in the structure ahead of you"_

"Roger that, Jorge get down here. We may end up needing you for whatever happens next" Carter said

" _On it"_ Jorge said before the Falcon he was in appeared and came in for a landing

Peter eyed the building for a moment and aimed his rifle towards it along with Emile and Kat as they spread out into the courtyard. It was than the door opened and Peter took aim but kept his finger off the trigger, the tingling sensation in the back of his head wasn't going off so whatever it was, wasn't a threat

Peter quickly eyed the figure that emerged from the structure and identified him based on his clothing "Civilian boss"

The man started to speak and what Peter's armor identified as Hungarian with his hands held up

"On your knees now!" Emile growled as he aimed his shotgun at the man

"Whoa their Emile, he's just a farmer not a rebel so put the gun down" Peter said as he lowered his rifle and glanced over the man's shoulder and saw more people, women and children mainly in the doorway

"He's right Emile, lower your weapon. Guy looks traumatized as it is" Kat stated as she clicked her safety on and lowered her carbine

"Jorge, ask them what they're doing here" Carter said as he saw that there were far more people inhabiting this building then it could support and based off their expressions, something had them spooked

Jorge begins to question the scared farmer while Peter makes his way towards Kat and stood beside her

"What do you think?" Peter nodded towards the man that was speaking to Jorge who would then translate to Carter what he was saying

"That something isn't right here" Kat said with a frown "and looked back towards the building and saw several children watching her and Peter though a window's shutters "Look at them, their terrified"

"Well Emile's appearance and behavior doesn't really scream hugs and kisses" Peter joked lightly before his face sobered "But yeah I know what you mean, ever since we got here I've been on edge…"

Kat was quite for a moment before speaking "Peter…I'm starting to think that rebels aren't the cause for…whatever it is that's happening here"

Peter nodded "You may be right on that one Kat…"

It was then that Jun spoke up over the coms in a more serious tone than previously heard _"Commander be advised. I'm reading heat signatures in the structure directly east of your position. Over"_

"Copy that" Carter nodded and looked to Jorge "Get them back inside"

Jorge began to speak Hungarian and ordered the people back inside as Peter, Kat were briefed on what Jorge told Carter

"These people were hiding, something attacked their neighbors last night and the man we just spoke to lost his son in the fields to something" Carter revealed as the five Spartans began to sprint towards the structure Jun marked for them

"Something, not someone commander?" Peter asked starting to feel uneasy, and it didn't help that tingling sensation was starting up again

"Noble Team I think it's safe to say we're about to meet our hostiles" Carter said grimly

'Something tells me I already know who it just might being…I can only hope I'm wrong' Peter thought and even though he couldn't read minds or see the expressions the others had, he knew that their line of thoughts were pretty close to his

They soon arrived at the structure and almost immediately the sensation Peter was feeling intensified. He responded by clicking his safety off and running a quick check to make sure his armor was operating at one hundred percent, and it looked like the rest of Noble team were doing the same

Peter saw that the door to what looked like some sort of garage was opened and Peter could make out several bodies off to the side with two of them clad in army uniforms pinned to the wall. His grip on his weapon tightened as he and the rest of Noble team entered

"Damn…" Carter said as he took in the state of the dead troopers and civilians…or what was left of them

"Fill me in commander, what are you seeing. Over" Jun requested

"Carter kneels down to better examine the men's bodies, while he was doing this Peter saw something that caused his blood to run cold

Footprints in blood…and they weren't human in fact they looked more avian and Peter could already tell they weren't made by Moa…

"We've got civilian and military casualties Jun. Two of our missing troopers" Carter said as he examined the men's wounds with a grimace "Looks like they were interrogated…it's messy"

"Commander these guys looked like they just got into a pissing contest with a Hunter and lost…badly" Emile commented as he kneeled down to examine the tracks that Peter was observing "…or a Jackal…a very big Jackal"

"Alright Noble let's move" Carter said as he retrieved the two men's dog tags and placed them in a pouch before signaling the team to make their way into the adjacent room…the same direction the footprints went

It was when the team was moving up a small ramp that they all heard something moving around above them on the roof, their motion trackers confirmed it and listed it as a hostile while Peter also felt the tingling increase even more so than it already was

' _Looks like what made these tracks stuck around'_ Peter thought as he readied for the fight that he knew was about to happen

They approached a doorway to a courtyard that was starting to fill with water as the rain began to pick up

It was than that for a brief moment Peter saw something move at the edge of his vision on a rooftop that overlooked the courtyard. He quickly brought his rifle to bare and aimed up towards the unknown's last location

Emile also saw it as he aimed his shotgun in the same direction as Peter's MA37

"What the hell was that?" Emile demanded as he scanned the rooftops for hostiles

The Spartans knew they were there, the question still was where exactly are they and who were they, but given the mounting evidence they all were beginning to come to a rather terrifying conclusion on just who was here…

Carter contacted Jun, hoping that their eyes in the sky can identify and locate what was here with them "Jun, you see anything from up there?"

" _Negative, thermal's clean, but it doesn't mean whatever it is, isn't still there commander"_ the resident sniper said as he continued to scan the area carefully

Carter nodded and signaled for Noble Team to make their way inside the other part of the structure while maintaining vigilance and to get them out of the open. As the five Spartans made their way through the trashed and abandoned building that Jun spoke up just as Peter felt the tingling sensation again

" _Boss, I see movement outside your structure!"_

"Copy that" Carter said before signaling to the team to pick up the pace and make their way outside as fast as possible

It was as the five-man team passed several large windows that they finally saw what Jun saw and all of them collectively inhaled and felt their blood freeze

In the courtyard below…were multiple grunts of varying ranks and what looked like Jackals but larger, more avian in appearance then what any of them remembered seeing

"…Oh shit" Peter said in horror

"Oh my god…" Kat said equally horrified that Covenant soldiers had done what she hoped would never happen

They made it to Reach…

…

* * *

And done.


	3. Chapter 3

Answers to reviewers' questions or statements:

 **treyalexander63917** : Some deaths will stay the same, and others, mainly for later parts in the story after the Halo Reach and we get into the main trilogy section will start to change

 **Felpere8Ranco** : Well Spider-mam's character is a fairly chatty character, he's going to talk a lot more often than most of the other Spartans who are more reserved. As for the other Marvel characters showing up, it won't be that obvious in most cases and the few who will show up will be fairly interesting and unique and attuned to this story and it's setting. As for shitty review warning, it's not that bad, it's critical but in a constructive way you aren't saying oh this thing sucks and telling me to go to hell so overall your reviews so far are good.

Also slight warning, I may end up making this a harem consisting of Peter, Kat, Sarah Palmer, Captain Miranda Keys and Linda-058

Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo characters seen, mentioned or used in this story

* * *

"Well…guess the genie's out of the bottle now" Peter said as he and the rest of Noble Team stared at the small Covenant party

"Commander we need to re-establish communications with command ASAP" at said as she shot Carter a glance of concern

It was than one of the avian like Jackals looked up towards the team's location and began to squawk in alarm, alerting the rest of the ground forces who all looked to see the armored forms of the Spartans in the window staring down at them

"Dammit" Emile said as he switched the safety of his shotgun along with the rest of Noble team and their respective weapons

"Noble open fire!" Carter yelled and no sooner did he give the order that the Spartans opened fire on the approaching squads of grunts and apparent super Jackals, the Covenant retuned fire with a combination of green plasma bolts fried from their Type-25 Directed Energy Pistols or more commonly known as Plasma pistols and a few purple needles fired from a Type-33 Guided Munitions Launcher or simply a Needler

Peter targeted one of the Jackals that was carrying what looked to be a Type-31 Needle rifle, a weapon commonly favored by the Elites and Brutes that Peter has encountered in previous engagements.

Peter opened fired on the Jackal in a series of shot controlled bursts, causing the Jackal to pause in it's advance and with a surprising amount of agility take cover behind a small tree

' _Shit'_ Peter thought as he immediately switched his sights to several Grunts that were carrying a Plasma turret _'Best take that out first…'_

Peter targeted the Grunt carrying the weapon itself and made to take out the rest of the gun crew before Kat scored a single headshot on all of them. Peter gave her a brief side glance before resuming shooting the other Covenant ground forces

"You stole my kill" Peter said with a chuckle

"Next time don't waste your ammo on a single Grunt" Kat stated dryly as she quickly reloaded her Carbine

Peter snorted at that before seeing several Jackals sprint through the hail of gunfire being dished out by Noble Team and into the basement of the building they were in. Peter quickly looked to Carter "Commander, hostiles inside"

"Get down to the lower levels, Jorge and I will keep them busy up here" Carter commanded as he aimed through his Marksman's scope and nailed another Jackal in the head

"Copy that, Kat Emile let's move it" Peter ordered as he and the two other Spartan Threes sprinted down towards the basement to engage the Covenant forces that were able to get through

It was than Jun spoke up over the coms _"Heads up Noble, I'm picking up multiple ground forces converging on your position, either they can hear the party or someone called for backup"_

"Roger that Jun, keep an eye on them and take some out if you can, we're almost finished with the force here" Carter said with the sound of Jorge's turret echoing in the background

" _Copy that commander"_ Jun said

"Hey Jun, save some for us, I actually want to earn my keep on this team" Peter joked as he, Emile and Kat approached the stair case to the basement and paused once they picked up the footfalls of multiple Jackals below them

" _No promises"_ Jun joked

Peter chuckled that that before looking to Emile "Alright Emile, time for you to put that shotgun to good use aside from looking pretty with it"

Emile's response was to give the gun a pump and a curt nod before shouldering it and moving down the stairs, his finger on the trigger. Peter watched him go before looking towards Kat "Kay, watch our six, some could have made it in here before we even got here"

"Affirmative…" Kat nodded as she followed Peter down into the dark that was filled quickly by the sounds of Emile's shotgun going off followed by the pained and dying squawks of the Jackals

The two had reached the bottom of the stairs just in time to see Emile pin one of the unknown Jackal variants to the ground and crush it's neck with his hands before reaching for his sidearm and putting two shots into a Jackal sneaking up behind him with a Plasma pistol. Peter move to assist when he felt that odd tingling in the back of his head and turned just in time to see a Jackal pounce on him from a crate, knocking him over from the sheer force of the impact and causing his shields to take a hit, dropping twelve percent

' _Damn, these Jackals are a lot stronger than the normal ones'_ Peter thought as he grappled with the Jackal until he grabbed it by the head and violently twisted it to the side, resulting in a loud wet cracking sound and the Jackal going limp

Peter shoved the body off him and reached for his assault rifle only to have it shot away by a stray plasma bolt. Peter looked towards the source and saw that Kat had smacked a Jackal's arm holding a plasma pistol away before kicking it into the wall and unloading half her clip into the alien's body, nearly tearing it in half as it's blood splattered over the wall, ground and on to Kat's armor

"Damn…" Peter said as he quickly got back up and checked to see if his rifle was still in good condition, other than the ammo counter now being offline thanks to the EMP properties of a plasma bolt, it seemed to be in good condition if a bit scorched on one side

Peter than looked to see Emile removing his custom kunak knife from a now dead Jackal when the building suddenly shook and its of concrete fell from the ceiling, one of them landing on Emile's head only for it to break upon contact with his energy shields

The Spartan looked up at that "What the hell was that?"

It was than one of the pilots from the Falcons spoke up " _Banshees, Charlie one moving to engage"_

"Keep them off our backs Charlie One and call in any signs of dropships, this many Covenant running around, they'd have to have a Phantom or Spirit around here" Peter said as he gestured for Kat and Emile to regroup at the entrance to the basement that was quickly being filled by the few remaining Grunts that somehow survived Jorge and Carter's barrage

" _Copy that Lieutenant"_ the pilot responded as they moved to engage the three Banshee's that arrived to provide support

"Noble, clear out the remaining hostiles, Jorge and I are inbound" Carter said over the com link

"Take your time boss, we're in no hurry" Emile said as he pooped off two shells into a red armored Grunt that was reaching for a grenade on it's harness

Peter aimed at several of the Grunts and fired on full burst, hitting both of them and causing them to try in flee in terror only for some of Peter's shots to hit them in the legs, causing both to fall over. Peter couldn't help but frown as he watched one of the Grunts start to crawl away, determined to escape

"Hold on little guy, I'm coming" Peter said as he quickly approached the last surviving Grunt and put a single round in it's head, spraying it's brains on to the muddied ground

Peter sighed as he reloaded his weapon and looked to see the rest of Noble team fanning out in the courtyard that was now filled with dead Covenant bodies, a majority of them being the fast breeding Grunts.

Carter then gestured for Noble team to advance down the hill that led to a small bridge when Jun spoke up, the sound of his sniper rifle cracking both through the air and com link _"Noble leader, enemy dropships inbound!"_

"What kind, Phantom or Spirit?" Jorge asked before the low hum of the approaching dropship drew his attention to a U-shaped alien vessel moving fast and low towards them "Oh, a Spirit lovely…"

"Least it's not one of those heavily armed Phantoms, hate it when they have those plasma cannons attached to them" Peter groaned as he and Noble team took cover as the Spirit opened fire on their location with it's under belly turret, scorching the ground in red and purple plasma

"Just how the hell did they get these things here?" Carter asked as he watched the Spirit land down across the bridge among a small enclave of rocks and off load it's troops in the forms of more grunts, mostly the orange yellow armored variants and a few more of the bird Jackals

"Don't know commander, let me go ask" Peter said as he slipped his rife on to his armor's magnetic clamps on the back and drew his two SMG's before sprinting down towards the bridge

Carter looked towards Jorge "Noble four, get down there and back him up, Two and three with me!"

Jorge nodded as he sprinted after Peter with far more speed than one would expect from a man his size while the other three Spartans made their way down the slope pf the hill to flank the Covenant reinforcements

In the air above them, both Jun and the two Falcons that flew them here engaged the Spirit drop shit, but were making little progress in damaging the hull of the alien craft with their heavy machine gun fire

Peter made it to the bridge just as the Covenant made it half way across and Peter slid under a hail of plasma fire and took him with his two weapons and opened fire. The bullets tore through the light armor and exposed flesh of the grunts, causing them to squeal in pain as they fell to the ground while the Jackals with surprising strength leaped back on to the rocks several meters behind them and used their raised elevation to try and pick of Peter before he got too close

Peter was about to move for cover when he felt the tingling in the back of his head and turn just in time to catch a Grunt from jumping in him by the throat "Yu know, aside from the screaming for me to die in your language, your kind is actually kind of cute…"

It was then that the Grunt grabbed a Plasma grenade and primed it and snarled at Peter with a look of rage

"And the cuteness is gone" Peter said as he headbutted the Grunt, breaking it's neck from the sheer force of the hit before taking it's grenade and throwing it at the Jackals that were shooting at him and now the recent arrival of Jorge who was keeping them pinned down with his custom turret

The Jackals saw the blue light of the grenade coming towards them and tried to move only to be cut down by the combined fore of Emile, Carter and Kat who had snuck up behind them

One of the Jackals got a shot off at Kat's head but her shields held and she replied by shooting it in the head just as the grenade landed and went off in a blue fiery explosion

 **BOOOOOOM!**

It was then that Carter spoke "Stand down noble, stand down. Contacts neutralize"

"Contacts? It's the damn Covenant" Jorge said with a growl

"Cheer up big man" Emile said as he reloaded his shot gun with custom armor piercing shells "This whole valley just turned into a free fire zone"

"Emile, we really need to get you a girlfriend" Peter said as he scanned the surrounding area for more hostiles "Or better yet therapy"

"Tell that to my CO's" Emile said as he kneeled down and started to rummage through the dead Jackal that landed by him after the explosion "hmm never seen Jackals like these before…"

"Sub species maybe?" Peter asked as he approached and crouched down next to Emile and examined it "Looks more avian compared to the regular ones…their stronger too"

"And fast" Kat said as she remembered some of them sprinting at speeds comparable to that of a Spartan "Perhaps their version of special forces"

"If that's true then that doesn't bode well…means that after all these years the Covenant hasn't really been hitting us with their big guns" Peter said with some concern

"Could take it as a good thing, means we've likely lasted longer because of it or maybe their new and this was their first deployment" Jorge said

"Well if that's the case I guess our good fortune is just about to run out" Kat said as she drew her side arm and put a bullet in one of the Jackal's heads that was still moving slightly

"Kat…" Carter said as he turned to his second in command "We need to warn Holland, I need you at the relay outpost now"

Before Kat could confirm, Jun spoke up again _"Boss, I'm showing more activity to the east"_

"Copy that Jun, we're on it. Six you got point" Carter said as he gestured for Noble team to move out

"Aye sir" Peter said with a nod as he reloaded his SMG's before holstering them and drawing his assault rifle and moved ahead of the group as they made their way towards another Covenant force

They didn't have to go far before they were engaged, this time Elite Ultras were leading a group of heavily armed Grunts

"Noble team engage" Carter shouted as he opened fire on an Elite that responded with a roar of challenge and brought it's Plasma rifle to bear and immediately returned fire along with the rest of it's squad

Peter and Carter took cover near a large boulder and concentrated their fire on the Elites, they were the bigger threat with energy shielding, more advance and deadlier weaponry and having speed, strength and reflexes on par of that of most Spartans

Jorge, Emile and Kat focused on the team of Ultra Grunts that while far braver and deadlier than most of their kind were still easy to pick off, at least for a Spartan.

Peter had just taken cover to reload his rifle when he felt the tingling sensation again and looked towards it source "Boss heads up!"

An Elite this one clad in golden armor but thankfully not a zealot based on armor configuration and lack of alien symbols had snuck up behind the two and was just about to impale Carter with a small energy dagger from it's wrist when Peter tackled it to the ground, both their energy shields flaring as they rolled around on the muddied ground, exchanging heavy blows as they tried to overpower the other. Peter grabbed one of the Elite's arms and used his far above average Spartan strength to crush the armor on it's wrist and break the bone beneath. The Elite to it's credit merely growled in pain as it used it's other hand and tried to stab Peter only for the Spartan to grab the limb and ram his knee into the snarling alien's side, knocking it clean off him long enough o draw his side arm and open fire on the Elite's head

The first three bullets tore through the shields and the last shot nailed it right in the eye, killing it instantly. Peter felt his energy shields take several plasma hits from several nearby Grunts and turned his sights to them and placed a well-placed shot in between each of their small beady eyes, while he was no elite badass sniper like Jun and the legendary Spartan-058, he was still a pretty decent shot with most forms of weaponry and at this range, it'd be embarrassing if Peter couldn't pull of a headshot

"Hostile neutralized" Carter said as he watched Jorge stomp the last remaining Grunt's head into the ground, crushing it entirely and dirtying his armored foot with it's blood and brains

Peter saw this and winced "Yeesh Jorge, did that thing insult your mother or something?"

"No…it looked at me funny" Jorge said in a straight tone

"That's fair" Peter chuckled as he picked up his assault rifle and brushed the mud off it and checked to see it was still working before looking towards Carter "What now commander?"

Carter contacted their resident sniper "Jun, anything from your end?"

" _I'm seeing more hostile contacts to the northeast"_

Carter nodded at this before looking to Emile "Emile you're with Kat. Six, Five and I will run interference on the ground. We'll meet up at the outpost"

Catherine nodded at this before radioing for pick up "Noble Three requesting air lift over"

"Inbound" one of the Falcons said as it broke off from formation with Charlie one and came in for a landing

It was than Peter spoke "Hey uh commander, how do you plan to have me, Jorge and you run inference, I mean I'm fast but not that fast and this is a pretty big area to cover for just three Spartans…"

"He's right, look at him sir…poor thing can barely stand after playing with that Elite in the mud over there" Jorge chuckled as he reloaded his turret

"Bite me Jorge" Peter responded with a mock glare

Carter scanned the area for any vehicle they can use before his sights centered on an old flatbed truck that looks like it's seen better days during the Rainforest Wars. He then looked towards Jorge and Peter

"Either of you two know how to hotwire a truck?"

Peter and Jorge both looked at the man before looking to see the truck he was referring to

"Uh commander, that's not a truck…that's a pile of rust with rubber circles on it made to look like a truck of some sort" Peter said as he approached the vehicle and studied it

"Can that thing even a Spartan, let alone three?" Jorge asked with some skepticism "It looks like it can barely hold a barrel on it"

"And this is why I never let him choose our rides" Kat said over the com as she and Emile boarded the Falcon and slowly rise into the air "Have fun boys…"

"Hitchhikers may be Covenant assholes" Emile said with a laugh

Carter watched the two go before looking towards Peter and Jorge with a hidden grin "Would you two rather walk?"

The two Spartans looked at each other before returning their gazes to Carter "Yes sir/Affirmative sir!"

"Too bad, now get that thing moving, we have a valley of Covenant to clear out" Carter ordered

Peter sighed as he slipped into the truck's driver seat that could barely hold his armored bulk and ripped the dash board opened and began to hotwire the truck "Jorge if I die, tell them it was a Brute…with a hammer…riding a Ghost"

"Same only there were four Hunters and a dozen Banshees" Jorge said as he hopped on the flatbed and used his turret to help center himself while Carter slipped into the passenger seat just as the engine roared to life

"Hit it Six" Carter said and Peter wasted no time in flipping the truck into drive and hit the gas

"Just letting you know now, you get put and push f this thing dies on us" Peter said as the trio raced off towards the Covenants last known location while Emile and Kat were air lifted to the Communications relay outpost

…

* * *

And done

So next chapter, Peter, Jorge and Carter make their way through the valley to clear out any Covenant forces while Kat and Emile try to take the outpost back from the Covenant


	4. Chapter 4

Answers to reviewer's questions or statements:

 **treyalexander63917** : Peter and Chief's relationship will be interesting and it'll mainly involve Peter speaking for both of them, cause like you said he's more talkative then the Chief, least Cortana will have someone to talk to. As for the Arbiter, it'll be rather tense at first since the Arbiter led the assault on Reach and well most of Noble team dies so yeah that'll be a hell of a hurtle for the two to get by.

 **heroman45** : I've narrowed down John's love interest to two women, but neither are Cortana and the other is Kelly, but I'm still trying to decide which one to pick, might end up doing both but who knows at this point.

 **Spawn Hades** : No Peter won't be using any web shooters when on missions, may have them pop up in his down time and have him messing with him, but the web shooters would be a little out of place for this story. As for him saving Emile, maybe, still haven't decided but Kat will live for obvious reasons

Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo characters seen, mentioned or used in this story

* * *

"Come on, come on, come on, turn over you piece of outdated shit!" Peter growled as he tried to start the truck that he, Carter and Jorge have been using to help clear out the valley of Covenant.

For the most part, the truck held together under the combined weight of three Spartans, one of which was a Two and weighed more than either Peter or Carter and a few unrelenting onslaughts of plasma weaponry courtesy of the Covenant. And just as the team was driving away from their most recent contact with the Covenant, this group composed mainly of the new Jackal breed and over two dozen Grunts… the engine died

"Maybe it's out of fuel?" Jorge said as he circled the truck, his turret at the ready as he scanned the area for any hostiles, be it Covenant or not

"Could be mechanical" Carter said as he tapped the hood of the truck "Open her up Six and let's see if we can get this thing up and running again"

Peter pressed a button that opened the hood and no sooner did Carter open it up to examine, a column of smoke began to rise from it. Carter leaned in to examine the damage and found the source of the problem

"Dammit, plasma bolt hit the fuel line, so you were right to an extent Jorge, we did run out of fuel" Carter said was he slammed the hood back down "The damn plasma burned it all up in seconds"

"Greeeeeeat" Peter said as he hopped out of the truck and gave the side a kick, denting the side and causing the vehicle to lurch a bit "Why couldn't you be plasma resistant, or as close to it as humanity can make?!"

"Six, this is a civilian truck, not an APC or a Warthog" Carter said as he was about to contact Jun for an air lift when suddenly the team's resident sniper's voice echoed through the coms

" _Noble leader, I'm picking up a distress signal"_

"Let's hear it Jun" Carter ordered as he, Peter and Jorge listened in over the team's com link

They were greeted to the sound of a young man nearly yelling into the coms while several large explosions went off in the background and the sounds of gunfire and plasma fire filling in the gaps

" _MAYDAY! Three Charlie Six, dose anyone read? We were attacked by Covenant forces. The Covenant is on Reach, I repeat the Covenant is on Reach!"_

"The troopers?" Jorge said with some surprise "Their alive?"

"Well at least some things are going our way today" Peter said as he checked his ammo and frowned when he saw that his rifle had half a clip left and only three full sized clips in reserve. Both his SMG's were out and he only had one Plasma grenade left that he scavenged off a dead Grunt

' _Fought more with less…'_ Peter thought as he changed out his clip with a new one while Carter spoke up

"Let's move Noble. We've got a few missing troopers to rescue"

" _No disrespect, but don't we have more important things to do the round up strays?"_ Jun worded as carefully as he could, already knowing that it'll come off as a little harsh

"Yeesh Jun, what would you have us do if it was you in their position?" Peter asked

" _Continue with the mission and leave me to go down in a blaze of glory?"_ Jun asked dryly

"…I'm beginning to see why the ODST's hate us so much aside from the fact we're now Humanity's best soldiers and get the better gear" Peter said with a deadpanned look directed towards the nearby Falcon that Jun was in several hundred feet above the trio

"We're not leaving people behind Jun, you see those troopers, you let us know"

 **BOOOOOOOM!**

The three Spartans attention was drawn to a nearby explosion, roughly a mile and a half away.

" _Found them"_ Jun said as he ordered for the Falcon to head for the source of the explosion _"Picking up dozens of hostiles closing in on their position!"_

"Copy that Jun, we're in bound" Carter said as he, Peter and Jorge rushed towards the location of the troopers

' _Wonder if Kat and Emile are having a better time than us'_ Peter thought as he followed close after Carter towards the distant battle between the Covenant and the until recently presumed dead troopers

…

As it so happens, no she wasn't, though Emile was having the time of his life

"Whooo! Come and get it you split jaw assholes!" Emile shouted as he opened fire on several Elite minors and a handful of grunts that were trying to flank him and Kat's position as they tried to secure the courtyard to the Communications outpost

Kat was picking off a few of the super Jackals, they really needed to find a good designation for them, while trying to get to the security console that will let them into the outpost "Emile, keep them busy while I try to splice this thing!"

"Sure, all that's left are a few Jackals and some Gru-… aw shit" Emile said as his motion tracker picked up two large blips which only met one thing…

Kat looked towards the entrance to the compound and saw two large lumbering behemoths, each hunched over but still towering over the two Spartans with large spikes on the back, a massive Fuel rod cannon on one arm and a large metal shield capable of taking a Scorpion round at point blank range and not even so much as dent on the other

Hunters, the Covenant's strongest and deadliest ground troops, just one had enough fire power to wipe out a platoon of Marines and armor that rivaled the Covenant's heaviest and most powerful vehicles short of a Scarab.

"Emile, I hope you have some grenades on hand, because I left my rocket launcher on the Falcon" Kat said as she and Emile rushed to cover as one of the Hunters raised it's arm and fired off a single round towards the due

 **BWOOOOOMMMM!**

Kat peek out from behind her cover to see the two Hunters splitting up and approaching the two from each side. She glanced towards her teammate "You take the one on the left, I got the one on the right"

"You sure?" Emile asked as he reloaded his shot gun

Kat's response was to slap a fresh clip into her carbine before sprinting out from cover, peppering the Hunter's form with a series of controlled bursts before sliding back into cover as the Hunter sent a fuel rod towards the woman, narrowly missing her and impacting several meters behind, the force of the explosion coupled with the heat and radiation it gives off caused Kat's shields to flare briefly as she took cover behind a small pile of rubble

Emile used this moment to open fire on the other Hunter that was momentarily distracted by its bond brother's attack on the other Spartan, giving him a clean shot at its unarmored side

 **BANG!**

 **BANG!**

 **BANG!**

The Hunter growled in pain as Emile's shots dug into it's sides and pierced the worms that make up the Gestalt. It used it's shield to block the rest of Emile's shots and began to slowly approach the Spartan who started to back up towards the wall all the while firing on it's shield to keep it from taking aim at him with it's fuel rod canon

Kat meanwhile was firing controlled bursts at the head and neck area of the Hunter engaging her. The massive gestalt reacted by using it's shield for cover and pulling it's head in close to help better protect its neck. Kat's eyes narrowed at this as she quickly took cover and slapped a fresh clip into her carbine, being mindful that she was now down to five clips

"Hmm… maybe I should start carrying more extended clips… or just bring a gun with a lot of bullets" Kat said to herself as she rushed from behind her cover and used her superior speed to flank the Hunter and open fire on it's side and back, causing the large behemoth to stumble forward before turning towards her with a growl

It went to raise it's cannon towards her before suddenly it's attention was torn to it's bond brother's sudden roar of pain. The Hunter looked to see the other Spartan had been able to get in close and at point blank range unloaded two shells into the Hunter's head, nearly tearing it in half and causing the gestalt of worms to collapse to the ground in pain before Emile silenced it's pained roars with a final shell to the head, completely destroying it in a shower of orange blood and some chipped metal from the helm

The lone Hunter stared at the scene in still silence, seemingly unaffected by Kat's gunfire before it suddenly let out a loud almost ear shattering roar and charged towards Emile who glanced at the fast approaching juggernaut and paled

"…Oh shit" Emile said as he brought his shotgun to bear and unloaded three shells before he was forced to leap out of the way or risk being crushed under the Hunter's metallic shield as it came down on the ground he was just standing on only seconds before

The Hunter roared in rage and made to follow the Spartan before suddenly a grenade landed at it's feet before suddenly engulfing the enraged alien in explosion of fire and shrapnel, causing it to stumble back in slight pain and surprise before suddenly Kat was at it's side with her last grenade gripped tightly in her hand, the pin already pulled before jamming it right into the Hunter's side

The hunter on reflex smacked Kat away with it's fuel rod cannon, knocking the wind out of the super soldier as her shields dropped to zero and the torso portion of her armor was dented from the force of the alien's blow. She was sent flying back several meters and just as the Hunter turned to blast her with it's cannon, the grenade in it's side went off

 **BWOOOMMM!  
**

The Hunter's arm that held the cannon and most of it's side were completely blown off in a massive shower of gore and fire before it slumped to the ground, dead

Emile, having watched the whole thing let out a whistle as he saw Kat push herself back up "Damn… well that's one way to kill a Hunter…"

"Your welcome" Kat groaned as she ran a quick diagnostic of her armor and frowned as she saw that her shields had only reached back up to forty percent "Shit… my shields are damaged, they won't go above forty percent"

She than glanced down at her armored torso as she could feel small bits of the metal digging into her chest, hinting that some of it may have pierced her titanium body suit "And bodysuit is possibly compromised"

"Well let's hope we don't have to enter any vacuums in the foreseeable future" Emile commented as he approached the down Hunters and put a single bullet in each one's head or what was left of it, before reattaching it to his hip's magnetic clamps and began to reload his shotgun

"With our luck, that's our very next op" Kat said with a sigh as she picked up her carbine and attached it to her armor's magnetic clamps on her back before she began to approach the sealed doors "Now let's see if I can get these things opened without explosives"

"Best way to open any door" Emile chuckled as he began to go through the dead Covenant soldiers in the courtyard and make sure they were dead and police anything useful from them, be it weapons like plasma grenades or maybe something that can hopefully give them an idea of not only how a Covenant strike force was able to infiltrate Humanity's number one military HUB, but also what they might be here for aside from the standard kill all humans

…

Meanwhile several miles way back in the valley, the rest of Noble team had finally arrived at the missing troopers' location and saw that the men were about to be overrun by a large force of over seventy Covenant troops composed mainly of Grunts of varying ranks, a dozen or so of the unknown Jackal variants all armed with Carbines or Needle rifles and five Elites. Three of them were the red clad major's, one a Ultra from the looks of it leading the charge with two plasma rifles that were oddly red instead of the usual blue and the final one being…

' _Shit… a Field Marshall'_ Peter groaned at the sight of the golden armored Elite that was at the back of the force with two of Elite major's flanking it, seemingly observing and even directing the battle

"Noble Three, we've located the trooper squad. Request immediate evac. My coordinates." Carter yelled as he and Peter rushed towards the stranded Troopers who have taken cover by a destroyed Warthog that looked like it got into a fight with a Wraith and lost

" _Solid copy, Commander. Recalling Falcon Charlie Two. Hold that evac position."_ Jun replied over the team's com link before he briefly cursed as he and the pilots noticed something on the horizon and on their respective radars or in Jun's case motion tracker which has been modified to detect hostiles up to a thousand meters away _"Noble Leader, be advised: I have visual on inbound Covenant dropships."_

Carter cursed at this as he and Peter made it to the troopers and took cover behind thee Warthog with them before they began to open fire on the approaching Grunts while Jorge set up a firing position on a nearby hill and began to unload with his turret on the Jackals to keep them from providing support to the Grunts

Carter a Phantom in bound and narrow his eyes at the heavily armored and armed Covenant dropship "Evac transport, keep your distance! Six, hold this position. Clear an LZ."

"Sure boss, I'll get right on that" Peter said as he took his last plasma grenade and chucked it at a group of Grunts and watched as it detonated, killing the group of five and causing over a dozen around them to scatter in surprise, making easy pickings for the enhanced Spartan

"Spartans? Corporal Travis, Three Charlie, sir. It's the Covenant..." the man said with dirt, sweat and blood covering his face to the point it was a miracle the man could even see

"We know, Corporal. Let's get you out of here." Carter gave the man a reassuring nod before he spotted the Elite Ultra and began to concentrate his fire on the more heavily armored alien with his rifle

The Elite roared as his shields began to flare and quickly rushed to cover while the Phantom that Carter spotted began to descend and unload over a dozen Grunts and three more of the super Jackals, causing Peter to groan as he slapped in his last full clip for his assault rifle

"Commander, I'm running low on ammo. At this rate, all I'll have left is some quips I've been meaning to share and maybe an insult or two about their mothers left!" Peter said as he fired in single shots at the Grunts, aiming for the head for an instant kill

"Understood Six, Jorge how's it look from up there!" Carter yelled as he was forced to take cover as he and a Trooper were nearly hit by the Elite Ultra's plasma fire

"Not good, a small group being led by a Major's broken off and seem to be trying to flank you, I'm doing my best but I don't have unlimited ammo and this thing has to cool down eventually!" Jorge replied as he tried to take out as many of the Covenant as he could

"Copy that Noble Five!" Carter yelled as he and the remaining Troopers tried to stave off the approaching Grunts, the Jackals having been killed by a combination of Jorge's turret before being forced to deal with the split off group and one of the Troopers who still had a functioning Sniper rifle

Peter took aim at a approaching orange colored Grunt and fired his last shot into it's head, killing it instantly before taking cover or risk getting a face full of green plasma from the now dead grunt's allies "commander, I'm out of ammo!"

"Down to my last mag!" one of the troopers armed with a Battle rifle yelled

"Two shots left in the clip sir" the Trooper with the snipe rifle said before he set his sights on one of the Elite majors and squeezed the trigger "Make that one shot, but at least I took out one of the Split jaws!"

Carter was about to speak when suddenly the Elite Ultra he and several of the troopers were firing at earlier suddenly rammed into the destroyed Warthog, forcing the humans back before it leapt over the vehicle and tackled carter to the ground with a roar

"Commander!" Peter yelled and made to help him when suddenly he was forced back into cover by the last surviving Grunts and the remaining two Elite majors, the Field Marshall still watching it all from a distance before reaching for something on it's back and began to approach the battle

"Six, you and troopers deal with the rest, this one's mine!" Carter yelled and he and the Ultra wrestled on the muddied ground, each trying to overpower the other with a combination of brute force and speed "Jorge, provide covering fire as soon as you can!"

"Copy that!" Jorge replied as he was finishing up with the last of the small group that broke off earlier

Peter peeked from behind the Warthog and saw the last dozen or so Grunts approaching along with the reaming two Elite Majors, the Field Marshall was still in the back fiddling with a carbine it had. Peter's eyes narrowed as he took this in before glancing back at the still living troopers, or more specifically the sniper

He nodded towards the man's weapon "Mind if I borrow that?"

The Trooper, a Private based off his rank looked at Peter in confusion before he handed he man the high caliber weapon and reached for his side arm "Only one shot left sir"

Peter took aim at the Field Marshall's helmed head "I only need one, just make sure the others don't get me before I get their leader"

One of the Troopers frowned at this "What are you planning to do-"

 **BANG!**

The sound of the rifle firing drowned out the man's question and Peter watched as the bullet slammed into the Field Marshall's head, his shields blaring before they seemingly flickered out

'NOW!' Peter thought as he suddenly broke from cover and sprinted towards the Elite, the two Majors and the Grunts opened fire on Peter who saw the plasma bolts approaching as his surroundings seemed to slow down and the tingling sensation in the back of his head increased before his body began to seemingly move on it's own as he ducked, rolled and leaped over a volley of plasma bolts, pausing briefly to chuck the now empty sniper rifle at one of the red clad Elites like a spear before breaking into a full sprint

His shields flared as some of the plasma bolts hit his armor that he was too slow or unable to fully dodge but that didn't stop him from pushing through towards the still staggering Field Marshall. The Elite glanced up and saw Peter approaching and snarled and made to shoot him when suddenly Peter leaped at the larger alien and speared him to the ground, the sound of it's armor cracking and denting under the force of the blow being drowned out by the small arms fire from the Troopers and Jorge's turret as they keep the rest of the Covenant troops distracted

The Elite snarled as it wrestled to throw Peter off him, yelling in his own language that Peter swore sounded like 'Get the hell off me you damn dirty human!'

It was then that Peter felt the tingling in the back of his head again and saw that the Elite had activated a small energy dagger that erupted from it's ram, it's appeared was similar to that of a Energy sword only the blade wasn't two pronged and a lighter color of blue and white. The Elite made to stab Peter but the enhanced Spartan quickly caught the limb and slammed it into the ground, causing the Elite to grunt in pain before it finally rolled them over and rammed it's leg into Peter's armored side, causing his shields to flare and drop by twenty percent

"Damn, you'd make one helluva a soccer player!" Peter said as he pushed back at the Elite with all of his strength, before pulling his legs back until his knees were almost touching his armored torso and shot them out, nailing he Elite in the gut and sending it flying several feet back before he hopped back up and leaped on to the Elite and reared his fist back before ramming it into the Elite's head just as it's shields came back online

The result was Peter's armored fist making contact with the energy shield, causing it to flare and the Elite to snarl as it redoubled it's efforts to free itself from Peter's grip. Peter's response was to continue to hammer away at the Elite's shields as hard and as fast as he could until finally he was rewarded with the alien's shields shorting out again and this time unable to absorb the blows of Peter's fists

The elite's head snapped to the side as Peter delivered a powerful left hook that seemed to break it's two left side mandibles before Peter pulled his fist back and with every bit of raw physical strength he possessed slammed his hand right into the Elite's face

He was met with the sounds of bone and metal breaking and the Elite's body going limp, causing Peter to stumble off it and let out a sigh of relief. He casted a curious glance around to see that the rest of the Covenant foot soldiers have been dealt with and Carter had just plunged his knife into the skull of the Elite that he was fighting before pushing the body off himself and tearing the knife from the now dead alien's flesh

"Transport, LZ is clear. Move in for evac." Carter said as he let out an exhausted sigh as he picked himself up from the ground and brushed some of the dead Elite's blood off his visor

 _"Affirmative. Transport inbound."_

"Noble Two, sit-rep." Carter asked as the Falcon that Jun was on came to a stop before the three Spartans who quickly began to pile in

"Welcome aboard" Jun said with a nod as he was sitting on one of the Falcon's door gunners but the turret was removed to allow him to better provide sniper support. He nodded towards a small crate "Some ammo if you need it"

"Thank you" Peter said as he propped open the lid and pulled out several clips for him and handed a few off to Carter who mumbled a thanks as he reloaded his Marksman

After several moments, Kat finally responded _"We're at the relay outpost. Door's locked. Mechanism's been flash-fused."_

"Can you beat it?" Carter questioned

 _"I dialed up my torch, cut a way through. Going to take some time."_

"Okay, we're en-route to your location." Carter said as the Falcon rose into the air and began it's approach on the distant form of the Communications depot at full speed

"Don't know why she can't just blow the doors down with some explosives" Peter said as he finished loading his assault rifle before glancing out the Falcon to see the passing rock formations and mountains

"My opinion, the best way to clear any obstacles" Jorge said with a chuckle as he wiped some mud off his shoulder before adjusting his grip on his portable turret

"We're approaching the com outpost." The pilot announced as they neared the massive communications dish, allowing them to see that there was plasma fire erupting from the courtyard as a Phantom had just taken off and another one was in bound from the looks of it

"Drop us in the courtyard." Carter ordered in a hard tone as he saw that Emile was about to be overrun

"LZ's a little hot, sir-"

"Put her down, pilot. Six, break's over." Carter stated as he checked his Marksman and was annoyed to see that he was down to one full clip and one-half clip left

"Gotta earn that nonexistent paycheck I know the UNSC will never let me get somehow Commander" Peter said dryly as he loaded his rifle before following Carter off the Falcon and into the Covenant filled courtyard

…

* * *

Next chapter, battle for the Communications outpost


	5. Chapter 5

Answers to reviewers' questions and statements

 **chimera629** : The energy dagger is built into the Elite's arm guards, he can't just take it like he could an Energy sword and use it

 **treyalexander63917** : I have plans for Peter top get his own A.I. but it won't be the one from Red vs Blue, mainly because I don't really know much about it despite the fact it's been around since the very beginning almost which is weird. But I may bring it in as a sort of cameo or have it play a minor role later on or something. Even then it'll be a while till Peter gets an A.I., like not until the battle for Earth in Halo 2. Granted said A.I. will appear before then but hey they won't become partners till Regret and his fleet show up

 **Redrangerlegacy** : That, huh didn't notice that I just wanted to show that as powerful as a Spartan's armor is, it can still be damaged. Plus, there's like a two-day gap between this mission and the one to ONI Sword base, plenty of time to fix her armor, hopefully. Sides the reason her shields didn't work in the game was because the Glassing beam that was fired from the Covenant ship emits a powerful EMP that shorted out her and the rest of the team's shields, as for her not going into space, meh maybe Carter didn't want to lose his second in command or something, who knows, either way we lost one of my favorite Spartans!

 **superspiderfan** : Maybe, but no real romance will start until after the events of Halo 3. Will tease it and maybe the occasional kiss but things won't progress beyond that until the Human-Covenant war ends

Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo characters seen, mentioned or used

* * *

"Commander, nice of you and the others to join the party!" Emile shouted as he stabbed a Grunt in the eye with his knife before he raised his shotgun and blasted the head off a Jackal that was approaching him from behind with a Plasma pistol

Peter aimed his rifle at several Grunts and one of the normal looking Jackals and opened fire "Yay the regular Jackals are back, never thought I'd miss the little bastards and their squawking!"

"Hell of a lot easier to deal with then the newer ones" Jorge agreed as he opened fire on several Jackals, forcing them behind their shields "And they don't jump around as much"

"How we doing, Kat?" Carter asked as he made his way next to Kat while keeping the Covenant at bay

"Taking a little longer than I hoped, Commander. I've cut about halfway through the door." Kat said in a strained tone

"Oh for the love of- just blow the damn thing down. I'm sure the brass will understand and worse comes to worse we blame the Covenant" Peter groaned out as he leaped over a Jackal before ramming the butt of his assault rifle into it's head, knocking several teeth loose before he grabbed it's arm that held the small portable shield and yanked it hard, tearing the limb from the now screeching alien before kicking it away and ducking his armored frame behind the energy shield

"What happens if they check our helmet cams?" Emile questioned as he unloaded several shells at a small group of Grunts, the pellets tearing through their lightly armored frames with ease

"Well considering we're being slowly overrun, I think they'll understand… sort of" Peter said as the shield he was using shorted out after a Grunt shot it with an overcharged Plasma bolt fired from it's Plasma pistol. The EMP given off also caused some damage to his own shields "We really need to upgrade out shielding technology… even if it is new or well as new as it can be for us… Hey by the way are you guys aware that the Headhunters have-"

"Later Six, focus on the Covenant" Carter barked out

"Fine…" Peter sighed as he slammed the butt of his rifle into a Grunt's head, knocking it's respirator off before he kicked it away and shot at several more converging on his position

It was then that Emile saw several dropships approaching and warned the rest of the team "Contact!"

"Hold them off until Kat can hack the controls." Carter said as the team took cover as the dropships opened fired on the team with it's plasma cannons and turrets

Peter had to hold back a yelp as one of the plasma bolts from the Dropship scraped against his armor, forcing his shields to drop to zero, causing the alarm to start blaring "Yeah I get it, shields down, very bad!"

Peter then felt the tingling sensation in the back of his head again and looked to see that one of the new Jackal variants had hopped on to a nearby ledge and was aiming it's Carbine at him

"Uh-oh" Peter said as he tried to take aim but the barrage of plasma on his location was making things difficult, plus the blaring alarm his armor was still making was really starting to annoy him

The Jackal screeched at him and just as it was about to shoot him, it was suddenly hit by a barrage of lead fired from Jorge who was able to find a descent spot to fire from without risk of getting hit by the dropships that were providing cover to it's troops

Peter watched the dead Jackal fall to the ground with a thud and shot Jorge a nod of thanks before he saw his shields finally recharging. Several moments later the Plasma barge had finally ended and Peter risked a peek and paled at the sight of over three dozen Grunts, most armed with Needlers, a few with Fuel Rod Canons and were all being led by a Elite Field Marshal who was flanked by several regular Jackals and two of the new variants with several more Dropships already in bound

Carter saw this as he and Noble Team began to open fire on the approaching Covenant horde "Kat?"

"Just about... there! We're in!" Kat said as the door opened and she immediately reached for her carbine and began to open fire on the Covenant soldiers who began to scatter and return fire

Carter rushed from his cover and towards the door while returning fire towards the Covenant troops just as the first Dropship arrived "Everybody inside! Go, go, go!"

"What are you talking about Boss? We're winning!" Peter said as he fired off his last round at a approaching Jackal, scoring a headshot

"Now Six!" Carter said as he and Kat were at the door providing cover fire as Emile and Jorge rushed inside

"Fine!" Peter groaned as he reloaded his rifle before sprinting towards the door, his shields flaring as he took several plasma shots and a few needler rounds impacting against the yellow energy

It was then that Peter felt the tingling sensation again and looked back to see one of the Grunts fired off a Fuel Rod round… right at him!

"…Crap" Peter said as he leaped towards the door just as the green energy rocket impacted against the ground he was just occupying

 **BWOOOM!**

The force of the explosion sent Peter flying through the door just as it closed and the Covenant began to charge towards the Spartans. The team let out a collective sigh as they could hear the muffled sounds of the plasma bolts impacting against the large door followed by numerous sounds of Grunts and Jackals yapping and screeching

"Well… that was fun" Peter said as he picked himself up and brushed some of the dust off his armor and shouldered his rifle "So now what?"

"We need to find the control room. From there, Kat can get the relay back online. Emile, post here. If we flush any hostiles, they're yours" Carter said before he contacted Jun "Noble Three, I want you and those Falcons to clear out the Covenant outside the Relay"

" _Affirmative sir"_ Jun replied

Carter nodded in satisfactory before gesturing the rest of Noble to follow him deeper into the Relay outpost "All right, let's do this."

Peter made to follow when he felt the tingling in the back of his head again, causing him to pause as he scanned his surroundings with narrowed eyes behind his helmet's visor. This action didn't go unnoticed by one of his teammates

"You alright Six?" Jorge asked as he came to stand next to the shorter but every bit as lethal Spartan

"Just… a feeling is all" Peter said before he and Jorge followed after Kat and Carter while Emile was left at the entrance

"Jun better leave me some… Gotta a quota to meet" the Spartan muttered as he began to reload his shotgun as the sounds of the Falcon's turrets echoed through the door followed by the sounds of dying Covenant

"That guy really needs therapy" Peter said towards Jorge as they made their way through the dark halls of the Relay station

"Don't we all" Jorge joked as the Spartans finally reached the Stations control room

"Control room. Go easy." Carter said as he signaled the team to precede with caution

The four slowly made their way inside before they spotted two corpses ahead of them, a woman who seemed to be in her thirties and a man that looked to be in his sixties "Noble Six, search those bodies."

Peter nodded as he made his way towards the bodies while Carter having saw a downed Trooper off to the side made his way to him, happy to see that the man was still alive

"Where's the rest of your unit?" Carter asked as he kneeled down next to the badly wounded man, he was covered in plasma burns and blood

The Trooper groaned in pain as he adjusted his position "We got split. I don't think they... It sounded bad on the comms."

"All right, Corporal, stay put. We'll get you a combat surgeon." Carter reassured the man

Kat meanwhile was investigating the consoles to see if she could activate the Relay and get a message out to Holland "Damn. Plasma damage!"

Peter had searched the woman first and saw that she had nothing on her that screamed significant, least to him. So, he began to search the older man before something caught his attention. It was a data module

"Found something." Peter said as he held the small device up

"I'll take that, Six. Not your domain." Kat said as she snatched it from his hand with her robotic limb

Peter gave the woman a playful glare, even if she couldn't see it "You don't know that, for all you know I'm the UNSC's top tech expert!"

"Are you?"

"…I like to think I am" Peter said with a sigh before suddenly his attention along with Kat and Carter's was drawn to Jorge as he discovered something

"I've got a live one over here! Come on, out you come." Jorge said as he pulled out a small child, no older than thirteen. He was dressed in a black jacket, blue pants and black shoes

"It's all right, we're not going to hurt you." Jorge said as the boy still kept fighting against the behemoth of a man with all of his strength which Peter found admirable

"Jorge..." Carter said as he stood up and took a step forward

"I've got him." Jorge said as he set his weapon on the ground and grabbed the child by the shoulders with both hands and gave him a stern look under his helm "Keep still, and I'll release you."

"They're still here!" the kid said with fear in his voice before suddenly Peyer felt the tingling again and not a moment sooner, three Zealot class Elites dropped down next to Jorge and the child, the leader from the looks of it, activating an Energy Sword and swiping at Jorge who ducked and placed himself between the now screaming boy and the snarling Elite

 _"What's your status, over?"_ Emile asked as he could make out the sounds over the teams comms

"We've been engaged!" Carter yelled as he, Kat and Peter opened fired on the three Elites

The leader of the trio stormed through the bullet storm, his shields flaring as the bullets impacted against his frame and steamrolled past Peter, knocking the enhanced Spartan aside with a grunt and made his way towards the exit and deactivated it's energy sword

"Bad guy coming out!" Carter warned Emile

One of the two remaining Zealots suddenly appeared before Peter and grabbed him by the neck and lifted the Spartan up and produced a energy dagger from it's wrist and prepared to stab Peter when he suddenly lashed out and struck the Elite in the face. The Elite was stunned momentarily before it narrowed it's eyes at Peter and roared in rage before suddenly Carter kicked the Elite in it's side, knocking it away from Peter while Kat opened fire on the retreating alien, draining it's shields with her carbine and forcing it to hide it's head behind it's energy dagger

Carter then kicked Peter's rifle over towards him, Peter reached down and grabbed it and took aim at the two Elites, one of which was holding the wounded and screaming Trooper as a human shield and a plasma pistol in it's hands. One of the elites roared as it and it's compatriot entered through a door and disappeared, followed soon by the sounds of the Trooper being killed by one of if not both of the Elites

 _"That tango blew past me. Permission to pursue?"_ Emile reported in, his voice barely auditable over the screams of the dying trooper and the boy's terrified yells

"Negative, Four, stay on the entrance. Two, handle him. Five and Six, clear the hole." Carter gestured towards the doorway the two Elites went through

"Copy that" Peter said as he and Jorge made their way through the door. Peter aimed his rifle down the hallway while Jorge sealed the door behind them and readied his turret. Peter checked his own rifle and saw that he was down to his last full clip. He glanced around and saw a one of the dead troopers with a DMR lying next to him

Peter crouched down and checked to see the rifle was fully loaded and operational. He took the few clips he could see of the man's corpse "Sorry buddy, but if it's any consolation, I'll be using this to kill the guys that did this to you"

"Popping flare, let's see if this will drive them out" Jorge said as he activated a small flare and threw it across the room to see if it will drive out any Covenant aside from the Elites that were still in here. The result was over a dozen Grunts and three Jackals emerging from behind several of the crates along with one of the Elite Zealots armed with a Concussion rifle

"Well there's one" Peter said as he opened fired on the Elite with his DMR. The armored alien roared in rage as Peter's shots impacted against it's shield while it made it's way it into cover while Jorge focused his efforts on the Grunts and Jackals

The Grunts were quickly torn apart by the turret fire while the Jackals grouped up and created a sort of wall with their shields and opened fire on the two Spartans with their plasma pistols. Peter took cover behind a nearby cate and was about to fire on the small little gap in the Jackal's shield that they use to fire their plasma pistol through when the Elite reappeared and fired off several plasma bolts from it's Concussion rifle

"Incoming!" Peter said as he and Jorge took cover while the superheated plasma bolts impacted against the ground and their cover before exploding into a small shower of plasma

The elite quickly rushed farther down the hall as Peter and Jorge broke cover and concentrated their fire on the small shield wall the Jackals threw up before Jorge pulled his last fragmentation grenade from his belt and pulled the pin and threw it towards the shielded Covenant foot soldiers

One of the Jackals saw the grenade land by their feet and made a screeching sound before the grenade went off, blowing the shield wall and one of the Jackals apart and allowing Pete and Jorge to move in and finish off the remaining two before they rushed down the hall the Zealot fled. They quicly made it to a room that was filled with several servers and the two prepared to move in when their motion trackers picked up movement below them and Peter felt the tingling again

' _Hmm really need to think up a name for that thing, because just calling it 'the tingling feeling' is really starting to become a chore… maybe danger sense or something'_ Peter thought as he and Jorge hunkered down and searched for signs of the Covenant.

They were rewarded to one of Elites popping up and firing off two concussion rounds at the duo before taking cover behind of the servers along with what few Covenant remained in here

"Flush 'em out, I've got you covered." Jorge said as he mounted his turret on the railing and aimed down towards the area the remaining Covenant were taking cover in

Peter nodded as he switched to his assault rifle and made his way towards the ramp that led down to the servers as Jorge began to open fire on the few Covenant Grunts he can make out while Peter flanked them. He just made it to the bottom of the ramp and was about to engage the Covenant when suddenly the tingling happened again and Peter saw a primed Plasma grenade coming towards him

"Oh shoot" Peter said as he ducked back behind the corner as the grenade came to a stop a few feet from him and exploded in a shower of blue plasma energy

His shields flared from the small EMP it gave off and dropped even lower. Peter grunted at this as he peeked behind the corner and saw several Grunts appear. He took aim at the first Grunt and fired off a single round with his DMR, nailing it in the head before he quickly switched to the next Grunt and did the same. The rest scattered behind cover only to be forced back out into the open by Jorge and the few that didn't were easily picked off by the Spartan-II while Peter delivered a single shot to each of their heads until all of the Grunts were dead

"Well, there's the Grunts… now where's the Zealo-" Peter began to move when suddenly he felt the tingling again and ducked just as the Elite came of nowhere with it's energy sword raised and slashed the metal wall that Peter was using for cover "Oh, there you are"

He quickly shoved the Elite back, sending the several hundred-pound armored alien back before he began to shoot at point blank range at the head. The Elite roared in rage and pushed through the bullet barrage and tried to slash at Peter again who brought up his DMR to block the energized weapon

The human made weapon didn't even stand a chance as the Elite cut through the metal with ease and nicked Peter's shields a bit with the infamous weapon. Peter jumped back and reached for his assault rifle before being forced back farther as the Elite continued to swipe at him, which he dodged with ease before the Elite swung too far and Peter sent his elbow into it's face, knocking it back before he jumped on the snarling Elite and swung around and brought it's head into a sleeper hold and began to squeeze

The Elite began to thrash about in attempt to dislodge Peter before it did something that the Spartan-III or Jorge who was watching, it activated it's energy dagger and stabbed it through it's shields and shoulder and right into Peter's!

"GAH!" Peter shouted in pain and surprise before he kicked off the equally in pain Elite "Son of a bitch that's smarts!"

Jorge then used that moment to open fire on the distracted Elite and peppered it's form with his turret, tearing through the Elite's flesh and causing it to roar out in pain before slumping to the ground with a wet thud. Peter hissed in pain as he applied pressure to the sizzling wound as he got back up before his motion tracker and his apparent sixth sense picked up movement behind him

"Oh great…" Peter said as he was suddenly knocked down by the remaining Zealot who aimed it's Concussion rifle at his head with a snarl and said something in it's language

Peter was just about to kick out at the towering Alien when suddenly Jorge's form slammed into the surprised Elite and knocked them both down, their shields both flare at the impact. Peter quickly got up and drew his knife and approached the struggling duo before the dark clad Spartan rammed his blade into the Zealot's eye, causing the Elite to let out a pained roar before Peter snapped his wrist to the side and by proxy the Elite's head and broke it's neck with a loud echoing 'crack'

The Elite went slack as Peter tore his serrated blade from it's head with a grunt "May not be your guys' fancy energy blades but it gets the job done" Peter said as he wiped the Elites blood off on his arm before sheathing it

"Noble Five reporting. Contacts neutralized." Jorge said as he pushed himself off the dead Elite's body and stood up while Peter gave the man a thumb's up as he checked his shoulder wound and saw while painful, was noting too serious

 _"Kat needs you to reset a junction. Do it and get back here."_ Carter ordered the duo

Peter nodded as he approached the junction "Hmm let's see… ah here it is"

He pressed a few buttons on the keypad before hitting the green button he then stepped back and glanced at Jorge "Come, lets get back so I can boast to Emile that I took on two Zealots and won!"

"With some help" Jorge said with a chuckle as he and Peter began to make their way back to the rest of the team in the Control room

Several moments later, Jorge and Peter returned to see Kat crouched before one of the terminals with Carter behind her. Emile was leaning against the wall keeping an eye on the boy that the tram found earlier

"How long?" Carter asked in regards to getting the Relay back up and running

Kat rolled her eyes under her helmet as she removed the panel to access the terminal "Question of my life. If the question is when will this station be back online, two weeks, earliest. This is plasma damage. All major uplink components are fried."

"Two minutes is too long." Carter said with some impatience in his tone

"Which is why I'm splicing into the main overland bundle to get you a direct line to Colonel Holland..." Kat said as she leaned in to begin before looking over her shoulder at Carter "You're in my light, Commander."

"Since when do Spartans need light to see, the augmentations fixed that little issue…" Peter mumbled out with a snort

Carter didn't seem to find this amusing as he gave Peter a hard look before gesturing towards the boy "Find out what he knows."

Peter sighed as he pushed off the wall next to Emile and approached the young boy and kneeled down next to him

"What's your name? Do you live around here?"

Peter frowned at the boy before he reached up and removed his helmet, perhaps seeing a human face might make the boy more open or at least less guarded "My name's Peter"

"…Miles… Miles Morales… I-I'm from New Phoenix" the boy said after a few seconds

"Miles huh, well what's a city kid like you doing all the way out here?"

"…We were visiting a friend of my mom's… h-he invited us out here to visit"

Peter then glanced towards the bodies, the woman specifically before nodding towards her "Is she-"

"My mother…"

"…I'm sorry"

"Why would you be?" the boy gave Peter a bitter look

Peter didn't respond as for a brief moment he found himself back on New Harmony, surrounded by fire as Marines rushed around him towards the advancing Covenant army as he tried to shake his mother awake after she was hit by one of the glowing balls being fired from the approaching monsters

He then suddenly found himself back on Reach as he saw the kid was looking down at the ground, tears starting to fall down his face before he rested his head on his knees and began to silently weep. Peter sighed as he stood up and rubbed his scalp as he tried to think of a way to make this situation even less terrible for the kid

' _Starting to think I should have payed attention more in that had to interact with civilians' course Kurt taught'_ Peter thought tiredly as with his enhanced hearing and likely the others, they could all hear his choked sobs, muffled as they were

Emile, who was watching the whole exchange, decided to voice his opinion on the matter "You're a Spartan Peter, not a therapist. You shoot and kill, not help kids feel better…"

It was than Peter glared at Emile with a scowl "He just lost his mother, Emile"

Emile's response was a scoff along with a muttered 'Who hasn't in this war…'

Peter gave the man another look before approaching Carter and gave his report though it was obvious it wasn't necessary given the man was right there. He just needed something to distract himself from possibly hitting Emilie "He needs a full psychiatric workup."

"He's not the only one." Emile said which in turn caused Peter to glare at the man again, this time with a string of insults to follow when Carter spoke up

"Lock it down, both of you! Get her on her feet... the body stays here."

"Thank you, sir." Peter said with a nod before turning to get the kid, but not before bumping into Emile's side with his shoulder and causing them Spartan to growl at Peter in response "Come on, let's get you out of here"

Miles nodded as he carefully got up and let Peter escort him out followed soon by Jorge and Emile

"Signal! It's patchy, but it's there." Kat said as she took a step back after finally getting a connection

"I'll take it." Carter said as he approached the terminal and removed his helmet

"Best not touch anything. You wouldn't want to ground this place." Kat warned as she turned and began to follow the rest of the Spartans out

It was then that the team's commanding officer's voice came through over a steady stream of static _"... I'm barely getting you. What's your situation, over?"_

Carter cleared his throat as he prepared to drop the worse news to date, and possibly not the last "Colonel, this is Noble One. There are no rebels. The Covenant are on Reach. Acknowledge?"

Holland was silent for a few moments before he spike up with disbelief in his voice and if one listened carefully, fear _"Come again, Noble One? Did you say_ _Covenant_ _?"_

"Affirmative. It's the WINTER CONTINGENCY"

Holland was silent for several long moments before speaking in a low troubled tone _"_ _May God help us all..._ _"_

…

* * *

And Done.

Next chapter, down time for Noble Team as they wait for their next mission


	6. Chapter 6

Answers to reviewers' questions or statements:

 **Treyalexander63917** : No he'll be using Covenant weapons later on, he's just didn't see a real reason to use any at this time. He will use an Energy sword during the battle for Reach and a Gravity Hammer too

 **Spawn Hades** : Yes, he will later on.

 **superspiderfan** : Peter will get his A.I. just before the battle for Earth begins in Halo 2

Disclaimer: I don't own any Halo or Marvel characters seen, mentioned or used

* * *

Kat scowled in annoyance as she tried to crack the encryption code for the Data module that Peter found on one of the dead civilians at the relay station earlier today. So far, she was making slow progress, well slower than she'd prefer. She rubbed her eyes before she prepared to try something else when a voice spoke up

"Do you ever sleep?"

Kat looked at her door and saw Peter standing there dressed in the bodysuit that they would normally wear under the Mjolnir armor and a pair of dark grey pants, the area where he was stabbed earlier having already been repaired. Kat gave the man a slight scowl as she saw him take in her appearance of a simple blank tank top that showed off her toned midriff that was dotted with a few pale scars and dark grey short shorts that drew attention to her equally toned legs. Her prosthetic arm was normally a turn off for most men and women but Peter didn't even seem to notice it, it wasn't uncommon for a Spartan to have a replacement limb this many years into the war...

"What do you want Peter, I'm busy" she said before returning to decrypting the data module that's so far proven to be a slight pain in the ass.

Peter shrugged as he entered her room and began to examine it "My new room is between Jorge and Emile's and I've quickly discovered they snore, like really loud. I swear it sounds like they're have some sort of snoring competition to see who's louder. I mean I've heard Brutes that are quieter than them"

Kat glanced at Peter with a raised brow. She's been around Jorge and Emile long enough to know they don't snore, at least Jorge doesn't and Emile isn't too loud.

 _'Must be something else I suppose'_ Kat figured

She's not too surprised that Peter may be having trouble sleeping. Most Spartans or at least the Threes according to Jorge seem to have trouble sleeping more than the Two's. Kat and a few others theorized it was because of the trauma of losing your home to the Covenant on top of the rather traumatic 'training' and 'conditioning' the Threes were subjected to

 _'Plus... his time as ONI's personal Grim Reaper may be part of the reason...'_ Kat thought as she watched Peter examine the only photo of the original Noble Team consisting of herself, fresh out of Beta Company following Operation CARTWHEEL, Carter who used to operate as a Headhunter before his partner was killed on a mission gone wrong and three others who have all since died

"So Kat... you uh hear from the rest of Beta company or what's left of it?" Peter asked the twenty something year old woman

Kat shrugged "Tom occasionally calls when he has the time. Lucy can't for obvious reasons... Kurt too when the training of the new soon to graduate Gamma company allows him."

Peter nodded at this as he came to lean against Kat's desk and glanced down at the module she was tinkering with "Trouble?"

Kat nodded as she saw that her program had only decrypted roughly sixty percent. By now she should have cracked it and been seeing what was so important on this damn thing

"The decryption codes on this is above Alpha Level Tier one. It'll take a while to fully crack it..." Kat said with a sigh as she ran her robotic hand through her hair in frustration

Peter hummed at this before sitting on the edge of her reinforced desk completely, the metal groaning slightly at the increased weight "So what happened to you after you got pulled from Beta, I know you weren't part of Operation TORPEDO"

Kat shrugged as she leaned back in her chair "After CARTWHEEL, Kurt pulled me and placed me with Noble. He tried to see if Headhunters would be good but none of the other candidates came close to matching me so he decided to place me with Carter and his men instead"

"Huh, better than what I got. After I was pulled I spent the next three and a half years running ops against the Insurrection" Peter said with a thoughtful expression "You'd think they'd be trying to help the UNSC or at the very least not be giving them problems while they fight the Covenant"

"Peter, when have rebels ever use common let alone have common sense" Kat said with a dry grin before looking to see that the encryption was only at sixty one percent "Looks like its going to be a long night, fan-fucking-tastic!"

Peter followed her gaze before his eyes narrowed slightly "Maybe not..."

He leaned in before stopping and shooting Kat a questioning look. Kat eyed him for a moment before nodding and moving out of the way slightly as he brought up her holographic keyboard and began to type in a series of commands at speeds that even for a Spartan seemed supernatural

Kat narrowed her eyes a she saw Peter begin to breach the numerous firewalls with some rather impressive speed. She gave Peter a side glance

"Since when can you hack that good?"

"Since I started to use my time between missions for ONI and the UNSC other than preparing for another op. Plus my old ONI handler taught me a thing or two about a thing or two" Peter said as he began to make his way deeper and deeper into the firewalls of the data module for the next few minutes until-

"There, one highly classified data module hacked and ready to be read at your leisure Kitty Kat!"

Kat glanced at the screen before nodding in gratitude "Thanks..."

"Your welcome, maybe now you'll stop giving off this vibe that you don't want me here" Peter joked as he leaned back and gave Kat an amused look

Kat snorted at this "Save my ass a few times and I'll think about it"

At this Peter grinned before it fell and he glanced back at Kat's door to see Carter standing there in a white shirt with Noble team's symbol on the breast, dark grey pants similar to what Peter had on and a pair of black boots. Carter gave Peter a curious glance before giving him a slight nod

"Lieutenant..."

"Commander" Peter said as he stood up and gave the man a nod in return "Wasn't aware this was a sleep over sir, I would have brought my sleeping bag and special pillow"

Carter grunted at this before speaking "You mind giving me and Kat some privacy?"

Peter quirked a brow at this before glancing back and forth for a moment before his eyes widened as he came to a conclusion

"Ohhh... uh yeah sure" Peter said with a cough before making his way past Carter and muttering a 'sorry' and made his way down the hall

The leader of Noble team watched the man go for a few moments in confusion before glancing at Kat "Uh... what was that about?"

"He probably thought you wanted to be alone with me for... other reasons" Kat said in an exasperated tone "And he now probably thinks that he may have been intruding or some shit and possibly pissed you off"

"Oh..." Carter said before he leaned against the door frame and folded his arms across his chest "So... what do you think? About him I mean, was he a good choice in the end?"

"You mean a good replacement?" Kat said with some anger, out of everyone on the team she was the least happy to have Thom's place filled. Mainly because he was on Noble team since almost the beginning just like her and Carter and was her closest friend...

She mentally shook her head before answering "He's alright. Given his abilities he'll make a good frontliner like Jorge or Emile and given the numerous ops he's run for ONI, he can run recon with Jun..."

She cast the data module a brief glance before adding "He's also a descent tech specialist, not the best but good enough I suppose"

Carter nodded at this before looking back down the hall that Peter went with a slight frown "Holland really had to fight ONI to get him on our team, even went as far as to asking Lord Hood and General Strauss to have him transferred"

"I'm sure Admiral Parangosky just loved that" Kat said with an eye roll, knowing that the Director of ONI was less than pleased to have possibly one of if not her best asset taken from her

"We'll know soon enough but Holland did joke that he may not live to see next month for going around her" Carter joked

…

Peter quietly hummed to himself as he made his way through the nearly empty halls of the base that Noble Team was stationed for the time being. Given it was 25:40 hours, most of the personal on base were asleep, well the ones that could get sleep anyway and didn't have the graveyard shift

Peter chuckled grimly at the last part as he returned to his quarters after walking the length and width of this installation, or most of it for the past hour. H eventually came to his quarters and entered them, the lights automatically switching on even though he didn't need them on to see at all

Those augmentations he and all Spartans undertook gave him night vision and the enhancements from project rebirth enhanced it to the point he could see in pitch black darkness as if it were a bright sunny day. He glanced around his room, it was mainly bare given he hasn't been here long and he didn't have much in personal affects anyway

' _Or what the UNSC and ONI will allow me to have in regards to personal affects…'_ Peter thought with a snort as he walked towards his table that had his duffle bag on it still and sat down in the chair with a sigh as he cracked his neck and began to rummage through the pack until he pulled out a small box and placed it on the metallic surface and opened it to reveal a series of small little items

He pulled them out and assembled them on the desk while he idly reached for the terminal on the desk and switched it on to a random channel

" _-Thanks James, in other news be sure to stay tuned as we hold our long awaited interview with the man of the year and self-made multi trillionaire Norman Osborn, founder and CEO of OscCorp Industries has he-"_

"Pass, if I want to hear a douchebag go on and on about how rich he is and why, I'll watch a session of the UEG's congress" Peter said dryly as he switched the channel to something else

" _You never loved me did you-"_

"Oh hell no!" Peter said with a shake of his head as he went through several more channels before stopping on something that had a slow electric beep to it "Better…"

He then turned his attention back to the items before him and began to tinker with them. It wasn't anything big, at least he didn't think so, just something to help keep his mind and time occupied. Most of the time he messes with some old tech he's been able to recover from a Insurrection base and on a few very rare occasions, some things left by the Covenant, despite the latter being a direct violation of subsection seven of the Cole Protocol

"I swear if I wasn't a Spartan I would have been either sent to the brig or court marshalled" Peter mumbled as he adjusted a few wires and a small mechanism on the device before holding it up to better examine it before nodding "There, that should do it…"

He then reached for another small device, this one looked like a scaled down gauntlet of some sort before he attached the small device to it and slipped it on and adjusted the clasps and straps before aiming it towards the wall and pressed his middle and ring finger down on the small switch on his palm-

 **TWIP!**

Peter grinned as a thin white substance shot out in the form of a line and hit the wall a few meters away. He nodded in satisfaction as he cut the line and let it drop to the floor before removing the device from his arm when he suddenly heard a amused voice speak up behind him

"Should I come back later after your done shooting some white sticky substance all over the place?"

Peter paused and looked to see Jun leaning against the door, staring at the line on the ground as he entered Peter's room and picked it up and examined it "What are you messing with in here?"

Peter shrugged as he continued to remove the device from his arm "Just a little pet project of mine, something to keep me busy when I'm not on a mission or can't sleep"

Jun nodded as he pulled on the line and frowned as he saw it keep stretching to it's limits and still not break, even with the amount of strength he was applying to it "What is this?"

"That my far-sighted friend is a specially designed polymer to knit and form an extremely tough yet flexible fiber on contact with air with a tensile strength of at least one hundred twenty pounds per square inch" Peter said as he took the line from Jun and tied it into a knot and tossed it against the wall and watched it stick to the surface "I've also been tweaking and playing with the formula so that'll last longer. Think super glue but better"

"Impressive" Jun said with a chuckle "Doubt it'd stop a Brute or a Hunter, but a Grunt, I'm interested to see how they'd react"

"Heh, yeah…" Peter said as he picked up one of the devices and began to tinker with it some more, the firing mechanism was a little slow 'So uh not that I mind the company but what are you doing here?"

"Couldn't sleep" Jun said with a shrug as he examined Peter's room "Decided to stretch my legs and wander around until I either get tired or we'll called away on our next op to fight either rebels or the unrelenting and seeming unending might of the Covenant"

"How often are we called on some mission anyhow?" Peter asked as he adjusted a few settings on the devices "Like once a week or every other day?"

"Depends where we're deployed" Jun said as he sat on Peter's bunk and rubbed the back of his head "Though given the Covenant were able to get a strike force on Reach… I'd say we're about to get really busy in the coming weeks"

"Hurray" Peter said dryly as he leaned back in his chair and let out a groan "This almost makes me wish I was still tasked with hunting down Rebels or rogue ONI agents…"

"You had to hunt rogue ONI agents?" Jun said with some surprise, usually the cloak and dagger group handled things in house

"Yeah, at least that's what I tell myself" Peter said as he rubbed a hand across his face "Helps me sleep better at night usually"

"Working for ONI on anything is bound to keep you up at night" Jun commented with a grim laugh

At this Peter glanced at Jun and gave him an equally grim smile "Ohhh you have no idea Jun… you have no idea…"

…

* * *

And done

Next chapter, Noble Team is deployed to ONI Sword base which is under attack by Covenant forces!


	7. Chapter 7

Answers to reviewers' questions or statements:

 **DannyPhantom619** : Probably but at the same time Peter isn't as smart as his counterparts in that he never went to school and learned the things his mainstream counterpart did. I mean he's still super smart and could pick things up quick, but it's not like the war with the Covenant or the UNSC are gonna let him sit around and learn more, but we will be seeing him put his gifted mind to the test as this story goes. Kat won't be joining Peter and Chief when they head to Halo and even then, they won't always be paired together. But yeah Chief will find himself annoyed with how much Peter talks and Cortana will be pleasantly surprised to have someone to talk to aside from the Chief.

 **Spawn Hades** : The A.I will be based off a Marvel character but I won't be saying who quite yet.

 **superspiderfan** : The harem is made up of Kat, Linda-052, Sarah Palmer, Miranda Keys and maybe and I do stress **MAYBE** Cortana. The A.I. will be based off a Marvel character and they have appeared in Homecoming, but I won't say who it is quite yet.

 **Joe** : Nah, she'll leave it to Peter to figure it out, mainly because she finds it funny.

 **FadedEclipze** : Depends, some of these chapters I can write in a few hours, sometimes multiple ones and for other stories. Just depends if I have the time and feel properly motivated.

 **Xample** : I've toying with the idea of a Skyrim Spider-man crossover. The question is do I make him the dragonborn, which would be rather interesting and what I'm leaning towards more and more, or a follower of the Dragonborn who would be a woman so obvious romance later along with Lydia, Aela and Serena because it'd be blasphemy to not have her in it.

 **Mandalore the Freedom** : Yes, I'll be addressing that weird Stacker and Dubbo surviving thing.

 **Thedarkness1996** : I MAY add her, but I'd need to find a way to give her a sort of physical body like with Vision for her to use to be intimate with Peter. Or just have it be heavy flirting and dirty talking. It'll be a while until I get to that any way so plenty of time to brainstorm.

Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo characters seen, mentioned or used

* * *

Reach July 26, 2552, 11:26 hours…

"Wow, ONI has a sense of humor… who knew?" Peter said as he checked his assault rifle as he rode in a Falcon with Jorge and Kat in front of him.

"What makes you say that?" Jorge asked with a snort.

Peter gestured towards the massive iceberg field bay below them, the Babd Ice shelf just a few miles away "ONI's all cold and its people tend to have a frosty demeanor, just like the place they picked out for this base"

"So they have… what an odd coincidence" Jorge said as he glanced out towards the distant ice shelf with a hidden look of amusement under his helmet.

Noble Team has spent the better part of an hour and a half en-route to Sword Base that as of 0900 hours been under a surprise assault from Covenant forces. The team was in the air within minutes of hearing the news but many of them couldn't quite understand how the hell a Covenant strike force could get planet side and attack a base without any warning. A few dozen special forces they could understand but it sounded like a sizeable warship and strike force was part of the assault.

" _Be advised, Kilo-Three-Three and Kilo-Three-Four, your current LZ is too hot."_

" _Roger that. Dot, standby to receive and respond"_ Carter said as he stated out the side of the Falcon and saw the Covenant vessel that was currently attacking the base.

It was then that Noble Team's 'dumb' A.I. Auntie Dot or simply Dot spoke in what Peter thought was the driest, calmest and most articulate English voice he's heard in a long time.

 _"Yes, Commander... Coordinates received. Initiate immediate course correction. The Office of Naval Intelligence Sword Base is presently under siege from a corvette-class Covenant vessel. Due to the sensitive nature of this facility, use of orbital rounds has been, for the moment, prohibited. Regrettably, my efforts to obtain relevant data on enemy forces have been unsuccessful. However, current defensive forces are insufficient. ONI has requested Team Noble's direct intervention to help secure Sword Base."_

"I wonder how many people ONI lost before they had to call in for help. Their nothing if prideful" Peter said as the Falcons stayed fast and low of the arctic waters as they took an alternate route towards the ONI facility.

" _Probably half their security staff before they figured they needed help and half of that before they made the actual call_ " Emile said with a grim chuckle _"For an Intelligence agency, they aren't what I call intelligent"_

"It's a wonder how they lasted this long" Peter said with a shake of his head.

 _"Alright, people, we're stuck with that ship for the time being. Let's focus on the hostile infantry - give those troopers a hand."_ Carter said as the Falcons came up over the base and showed that the courtyard was a free fire zone. Plasma bolts, grenades and muzzle flash from the few surviving security teams dotting the ground and a few stray Covenant shots were aimed at the Falcons as they flew overhead.

Peter resisted the urge to fire back be he glanced out towards the Covenant corvette with a frown "Okay how the hell did that thing get by our orbital defenses? I mean I know they have better cloaking tech then us by a longshot and that's one of their smaller vessels but that's still too big a ship to miss. I mean it's slip space signature alone should have been clue enough that they were here, even if they entered normal space outside the system itself"

" _We're worry about how it got here later, for now let's focus on making sure they don't take this base… not that it'll matter if there's an armada on the way and this thing's the vanguard"_ Carter said the last part more to himself then any of the others as he checked his weapon before issuing out orders in a louder more direct tone _"Kat, Six - you're out here. Jorge, Emile - you're next, get prepped."_

Peter hummed as he checked his ammo and that his DMR with an extended ammo clip was functional while Kat pulled out her side arm and gave it one last check before she attached it to her hip's magnetic holster and drew her MA37 that had a small reflex scope to replace the typical iron sights and an extended magazine "Let's move, Lieutenant."

"Finally, any longer, I think I'm gonna get jet lag" Peter said as he and Kat hopped out of the Falcon as it came to a small hover at the far end of the courtyard and the two-half ton armored soldiers jumped out and on to the bloodied concrete with a heavy thud "Or would it be considered Falcon lag?"

 _"Kat, Six, push back the attack on Sword Base, find out what we're dealing with."_ Carter said as the Falcons pulled out while Peter and Kat moved forward towards several Army troopers that had been pushed back to their location by the Covenant infantry occupying a majority of the courtyard up ahead.

"Roger that. We're your strike team." Kat said as she and Peter slid into cover by the Troopers just as several Grunts appeared and opened fire on their location with a combination of plasma pistols and needlers.

Peter grumbled as a stray needler round flew over his head, his shields blaring a bit at the proximity of the deadly projectile before he returned fire with his DMR while Kat checked with the non-augmented soldiers.

"Report Corporal" Kat said as she identified the highest-ranking man amongst the group.

"Ma'am, Corporal Hicks, third platoon. The Covenant have taken most of the courtyard and are trying to get inside the base through the garage on the other side" the man said with a shaky voice.

"Any heavy units with them?" Peter asked as he sniped the top portion of a Grunt's head off with his DMR "Hunters, Brutes, or small scale mobile artillery pieces up there?"

"No sir, just, Grunts, Elites and a dozen or so Jackals, I think" the man replied towards the dark clad Spartan.

"What do you mean by 'I think'?" Peter asked as he glanced at the trooper.

"They don't look like normal Jackals to me" the man said with a shake of his head.

Peter nodded at that before glancing towards Kat "Sounds like our new friends are here too"

"Fantastic" Kat sighed as she peeked over her cover before taking aim with her assault fire and opened fire on more Grunts pouring in under the catwalk that overlooked the courtyard "Lets deal with them before moving up further"

"Copy that" Peter said as he squeezed of two rounds at a Grunt that tried to make a break for cover but was stopped by two bullets entering its neck and skull, causing it to slump to the ground.

Kat and the few reaming troopers alive were focusing their fire on several of the standard variant of Jackals that had come to re-enforce the Grunts. Most of them were armed with the typical circular energy shield and plasma pistols while one towards the back stood out from the rest. It's energy shield was red and it was armed with a Needler.

' _Hmm, interesting. Never seen a Jackal with a shield color like that or armed with anything other than a Plasma pistol or Carbine'_ Kat thought as she focused her fire on what appeared to be some sort of Jackal NOC or even an Officer of some sort. The Jackal tried to take cover behind it's shield but fire from several of the ONI security team caused it to drop it's protection just enough for several of Kat's bullets to tear through its skull, sending it's brain matter all over the ground as it fell in a heap.

Within minutes the first wave of Covenant forces was wiped out by Kat and Peter's overlapping fields of fire, their bodies littered the ground and already pools of their blood were beginning to spread and even mix with one another's if they were close enough. The security team or what was left of it did what they could to support the more heavily armed Spartans, but their ammo was low and several of them were already wounded in need of medical attention.

"Peter, any more coming?" Kat asked as she sniped the last standing Jackal.

"Nope, seemed to have fallen back towards the courtyard proper for the moment. But I do see a big Elite already ordering his men into position. If we wanna beat them, we gotta move now" Peter said as he scouted out the Covenant positions with his DMR's scope.

"Copy that" Kat said as she looked up towards Hicks "We'll take it from here"

"Give them a kick in the ass for us ma'am" Hicks said as he gave her and Peter a nod before truing his attention back to his men.

Kat signaled for Peter to flank the Covenant forces by heading up towards the raised observation deck that had a full view of the courtyard. Peter nodded as he glanced up the ramp before he sprinted towards it as speeds that didn't seem to fit with someone that looked so heavy. Kat rushed towards the stone dividers and slid into a crouch as Plasma fire began to hit her shields.

"Peter, a little cover fire would be appreciated here" Kat said as the volume of super heated energy bolts began to chew away at her cover.

"Yeah just give me a minute" Peter said as he went towards the railing to provide cover fire before he heard the hum of an approaching Phantom "Ah crap…"

He looked up to see the Covenant dropship approaching the courtyard, it's payload likely a dozen fresh troops at least. He also saw the aircraft's front turret focus in on him as he felt the familiar tingling at the base of his skull again. Peter didn't bother to try and fire on the ship, his bullets would just bounce off the hull and give its pilot and gunners a better idea of his position so they can blast him to a molten pile of meat and metal.

"Kat, gonna be a minute" Peter said as he raced into cover as the Phantom opened fire on the platform with it's plasma turrets.

"So I've gathered" Kat said dryly as she could hear the Phantom and it's plasma fire from her position. She checked her rifle before glancing out of cover to see over a dozen Grunts approaching her position with four Jackals behind them. Their shields were raised and stacked together into some sort of shield wall.

The blue colored Spartan sighed as she ducked back into cover as the Grunts began to fire on her position again. Her shields won't last long under so much concentrated fire and this was assuming they weren't taken out by an overcharged plasma bolt.

Meanwhile Peter was keeping out of sight of the Phantom's plasma turret while the craft deposited it's payload of four Elites, three minors and one Major and over a dozen more Grunts. Peter risked a look to see that the Phantom was starting to pull out as several Falcons passed by and had their door gunners open fire on it. Peter took a deep breath as he placed his DMR on his armor's magnetic clamp on his back while he drew his side arm and a grenade.

He then sprinted from his cover just as two Elite minors made it up to the platform and began to shoot at him, one with a Plasma rifle and the other with a Plasma repeater. Peter's shields flared until they dropped to only ten percent and his armor's alarm went off as he closed the distance between himself and the two Elites. Peter fired off a single shot towards the head of the Elite on the left to distract it while he tackled the other off the platform. The Elite roared in rage as it's shields flared while Peter's dropped as the two fell into the Covenant occupied courtyard. The Grunts and Jackals ceased their firing on Kat's position out of fear of accidently shooting the Elite that Peter was wrestling with. It wasn't because of some sense of comradeship, but because of what the Elite would do to them if they do happen to accidently hit it should he survive his fight with the human.

Peter gritted his teeth as he overpowered the Elite briefly enough to jam the barrel of his pistol into it's snarling maw and squeezed the trigger, blowing the Alien's brains out on to the ground as he threw his grenade towards the group of Covenant. The Grunts and Jackals scattered, unaware that Peter didn't pull the grenade as he rolled off the Elite's corpse and aimed for the grenade and fired at it.

The resulting explosion caused the Covenant line to scatter and allow for Kat to emerge from her cover and begin to pick of the various Grunts and Jackals at leisure. Peter stood up has he placed his pistol back on his leg's magnetic clamp and made to draw his rifle before he was suddenly tackled to the ground from behind by the Major Elite. Peter grunted in pain as he was slammed into the ground and the weight of the Elite above him held him down for a brief moment before Peter pushed off the ground with every bit of strength he had. He didn't get very high, only a meter and a half off the ground but the sudden action took the Elite by surprise and caused it to fall off of Peter, allowing him to roll away and draw his side arm at the same time.

Peter took aim at the rising Elite as it roared at him and pulled the trigger. Four .50 semi-armor piercing rounds quickly tore into the Elite's shields, causing them to flare and for the large alien to back pedal away from Peter before it was suddenly blasted by Kat's MA37. The rounds quickly tore through the now unprotected Elite and caused blood to spray from it's torso as it collapsed in pain. Peter glanced towards Kat and gave her a brief nod as he drew his DMR from his back.

"Thanks"

"Your welcome" Kat said as she reloaded her rifle and kept an eye out for the last two remaining Elites and the other Covenant troops in the vicinity "Come on, we still have a few stray Covies to take care of"

"Aye ma'am" Peter said as he spotted several approaching Jackals being led by the newer variant. He zeroed in on the leader with his DMR's scope until the feathered face of the Jackal was dead center in his rifle's crosshairs before he squeezed the trigger.

The next several minutes passed by quickly as Peter and Kat dealt with what was left of the Covenant infantry in the courtyard. The two remaining Elite Minors did their best to try and rally what was left of the Courtyard detachment but were both quickly and efficiently taken out by Kat and Peter. One from having it's neck snapped by Kat after she knocked it to the ground and the other was killed when Peter grabbed a blood stained Plasma grenade and stuck it to the Elite's torso and took cover as it was engulfed in the fiery blue plasma energy.

The Elite that Peter tagged with his plasma grenade had happen to be standing next to several of the remaining Grunts at the time and seemed to set off a chain reaction as their own grenades exploded as well. The result was a rather impressive ball of plasma energy that cloaked a good portion of the courtyard in that ominous blue color.

"Noble Two to Sword Control: courtyard is clear, over" Kat said as she fired off a round into a badly burnt Grunt that was trying to stand back up. It let out another dying squeak as it's brains splattered all over the ground though Kat figured it could have been it's methane tank depressurizing under the weight of her boot on it's back.

 _"Head to the main gate to the east, I'll brief you as you go"_ the operator stated as sounds of a very busy CIC echoed in the background.

"Affirmative" Kat responded as she glanced towards Peter to see him holding up a Plasma pistol "Let's move Six"

Peter nodded as he placed the pistol on his left leg's magnetic holster and followed Kat down a small rampway of sorts that let to the Base's main gate. The duo kept a watchful eye on their motion trackers and their own surroundings as they neared the gate. The area had grown silent after dealing with the last of the Covenant, leaving only the distant booms of the Anti-air fire in the background to break the silence. It was just as the two neared the gate that both Spartans saw a brief red blimp on their motion tracers and Peter felt the ever-familiar tingle at the base of his neck. Peter had turned to his side just in time to raise his rifle to smack into the head of a Elite Ultra.

' _Uh oh'_ Peter thought ads he backed away from the white clad armored Elite as Kat took aim and fired.

The shields on the Elite flared as Kat's rounds collided with it in short controlled bursts. The Elite Ultra growled as it raised it's Plasma rifle and fired off several shots as Kat and Peter while it ducked for cover near a burnt out Warthog. Peter and Kat broke off and moved to each end of the destroyed vehicle in attempt to flank the Elite and catch it in a crossfire. The Ultra however seemed to be aware of this as it suddenly tossed a Plasma grenade out towards Kat while it broke cover and fire upon Peter. Kat let out a curse as she jumped to cover as the Plasma grenade went off earlier than she expected and sent her flying into several concrete dividers while Peter flinched as one of the plasma rounds from the Elite's plasma rifle impacted against his upper chest. The fiery plasma bolt briefly blanketing his visor in it's burning energy before it cleared to show the Elite activate a small energy dagger from it's wrist as it rushed towards Peter with a snarl.

"Oh no, I am not playing that game again" Peter said with a shake of his head as he fired round after round into the approaching Elite's shielded head as he backed away as fast as he could manage.

The force of the impacts on the Elite's head caused it to slow down and to stagger before the final bullet tore through the shields and priced the Elite's eye. The alien roared in pain as blood gushed from it's eye and was about to advance on Peter again before a second shot from his DMR pierced it's skull, causing it's head to snap back and slump to the ground.

Peter lowered his rifle as he glanced over to see Kat picking herself up from the ground. Her armor was a bit scorched on the front and he could see a few minor dents in her prosthetic arm, but other than that she seemed fine.

"You good?" Peter asked as he reloaded his rifle as his shields recharged.

"Peachy" Kat replied as she brushed some dust off her MA37.

Peter nodded at this as the two finally arrived at the main gate and noticed several ordinance packages on the ground. Most were damaged beyond use or empty, but Peter saw one that still held something inside it. He crouched down and picked it up and examined the device with a whistle before turning to Kat.

"Hey, look what I found" Peter said as he held up a small device that Kat recognized as a target locator "Looks like it still works!"

"Sword Control, we have a target locator. Any artillery support in the area?" Kat asked.

 _"Limited, but we'll prioritize whatever you need, ma'am"_ the operator responded shorty after.

"So, their okay with using artillery shells on this place, but a MAC round is a no?" Peter said with a snort as he checked the settings of the locator "Least with a MAC gun, the accuracy is better"

"So's the area devastation" Kat remarked as they approached the gate and watched as it slowly opened up to them.

"On the surface maybe and that's if they use a light round. Still I think it's worth it. Besides we all know the real juicy stuff that ONI's so protective of is like several hundred feet beneath us at least and placed in rooms that can take a nuclear warhead, so it should survive and if not…" Peter said with a shrug as he switched on the target locator "Better that stuff is blown to hell rather then the Covenant get's their hands on it"

"Tell that to ONI" Kat said as they rushed outside the gate to see several burning Warthogs, dozens of dead Army and Marine personnel and a downed Pelican near a small rock formation. Beyond that, two Wraiths were closing in along with over several dozen Covenant ground troops consisting mainly of Grunts and Jackals.

"Oh trust me, I have" Peter said as he and Kat took cover by a medium sized rock formation just a dozen meters from the gate but still maintained a good view of the approaching Covenant force. Peter and Kat could make out several Elites all in red armor at the front of the column but no signs of any other higher-ranking members of their species in the assault force.

"And, what did they say?" Kat asked as Peter aimed the target locator at the advancing Covenant infantry.

"They said 'Spartan, you were made to fight and kill, not try and play your hand at making tactical decisions of this magnitude'. Nice to know that my opinion means jack to them" Peter said sarcastically as the target locator marked the detachment.

Kat hummed at that as she and Peter both heard a confirmation from a nearby artillery team warn them to stand clear followed by the very faint 'booms' od several guns. The Covenant seemed to hear them as well as they came to a stop just as several massive explosions went off within their column, catching one of the Wraiths and causing it to explode not a second sooner after being engulfed in the fiery explosion.

"Heh, now that's what I call a bombastic welcome to Reach" Peter said as he secured the device to his armor before drawing his DMR and opened fire along with Kat at the surviving Covenant ground troops and the lone heavily damaged Wraith.

…

* * *

And done.

Next chapter, Peter and Kat take the fight to the Covenant massing outside the base.


	8. Chapter 8

Answers to reviewers' questions or statements:

 **Spawn Hades** : That could possibly work.

 **zerozeno** : I may end up doing the one where the Dragonborn is a woman and Peter's one of her companions.

Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo characters seen, mentioned or used.

* * *

"Incoming Six!" Kat yelled as she saw the lone Wraith that wasn't destroyed by the artillery barrage zero in on her and Peter and fire off a plasma salvo.

"I see it" Peter said as he reloaded his DMR and took cover next to a large rock.

The plasma battery slammed into the rock, blanketing it's entire surface in blue and white super heated plasma. The stone melted and cracked under the force of the impact while Peter's shield's dropped to almost zero, the alarm blaring in his ear.

"We really need to make this alarm quieter" Peter said as he rushed from cover and sprinted towards the damaged Wraith while Kat covered him from her cover.

Their weren't many Covenant infantry types left standing after the artillery barrage, mostly Grunts that looked to beaten up from the shell barrage to offer up any sort of defense. Peter brushed pass them, or in once case ran one over, as he closed the distance between himself and the last remaining Covenant armor in the area. The Wraith tried to turn towards Peter and either blast him at point blank range with it's plasma mortar or run him down before Peter leaped on to the alien tank and grabbed hold of the hatch and ripped what was left of it open. Peter peeked inside to see a Elite driving and aimed his DMR at it's head.

"Like shooting fish in a barrel" Peter said as he squeezed the trigger and fired off two rounds at the Elite as it made to grab Peter.

The first round tore through it's shield, causing it to fall back into it's seat before the second round pierced it's skull, sending brain matter all over the console. Before Peter could do anything else, several Plasma rounds fired from a trio of Grunts caught his attention. The dark armored Spartan jumped off the Wraith and landed in a crouch and took aim at the last surviving Covenant troops in the area. Three gunshots filled the air followed by three wet 'thuds' as the Grunts collapsed to the ground with a bullet sized hole in their heads, or neck in the final Grunt's case. After several seconds of no return fire, Peter stood up and glanced towards Kat.

"I think that was all of them"

"Agreed" Kat said as she emerged from her cover and reloaded her rifle as she approached the slightly taller man. She then noticed a approaching Pelican carrying a warthog and nodded towards the landing craft "Here comes our ride, and it's in green. My favorite color"

"I'll drive" Peter said suddenly.

Kat paused and glanced at her team's newest member with a quirked brow "Is that right?"

Peter nodded as he turned towards the woman "Yep. I've see your driving back in basic and I know for a fact you haven't improved"

"Says who?" Kat said with a scowl.

 _"Says me. Six, don't let Kat drive, she's horrible"_ Carter said over the team's commlink.

Kat grumbled silently to herself as she and Peter made their way to the now detached Warthog. Peter hopped into the driver's seat and began to run a quick check of the vehicle while Kat hopped on to the turret and checked to see that it was in working order and loaded. Once Peter made sure that all systems were good, he hit the ignition nd the Warthog roared to life just as SWORD control radioed them.

 _"The old Farragut Station has it's own comms array. That should bring us back online with Command. Airview Base has an anti-air artillery battery that will help clear the skies"_

Kat checked her tacpad to see the locations of the two objectives before she sent them to Peter's HUD "Gun's to the west. Comms to the East. Which one do you want to get to first?"

"Ladies choice" Peter said as he glanced back at Kat.

Kat thought it over before she nodded towards the west "Let's get the gun back online first. It should help slow down the Covenant's landing craft. I'd rather not have drop ships crawling up my ass while trying to re-start the comms array"

Peter nodded as he slipped the Warthog into drive and hit the gas, causing the vehicle to shoot forward "Understood"

Kat looked up towards the skied with a frown as she saw that what few UNSC air assets were able to get into the air, mainly Hornets and Falcons, were being steadily overwhelmed by Covenant Banshees. For every Banshee taken out by the UNSC pilots, they lost three of their own in a small cloud of fire, metal and plasma before the destroyed craft was dragged back down to Reach by gravity. Before Kat could give the air conflict any more thought, Peter's voice echoed through her helmet's speakers.

"Ghost!"

Kat turned to see a Ghost driven by a Elite rushing towards them, already firing off it's plasma canons at the duo. Kat turned the Warthog's turret towards the alien fast attack vehicle and fired off short control bursts, aiming for the driver. Peter turned the vehicle to keep the Ghost's plasma shots from hitting him and tired to get either behind or beside the craft so it couldn't shoot him or Kat properly.

"Keep this steady!" Kat yelled at Peter as she fired off several more bursts at the Ghost as it raced past them and behind a small collection of rocks before shooting out the other side.

Kat aimed at the Ghost and pulled the trigger, firing off a long barrage of the chain gun's 12.7x99mm armor piercing round. The Ghost's body was peppered by the high velocity bullets before it ignited in a small explosion of purple and blue fire while the Elite that was riding it was sent flying from the craft in several pieces. Peter whistled at the destroyed Ghost as he drove past it.

"Nice shot"

"Thank you, though your driving under fire could use some work" Kat responded.

"Bite me" Peter scowled as they drove though a small path that gave the two Spartans a view of the nearby airstrip. Several Longswords and a few broadswords could be seen burning on the runway and one of the hangers was on fire. Multiple Banshees could be seen flying over head shooting at the airfield's personnel as they ran for cover. Spirits could be seen flying back and forth between the airbase and the Covenant Corvette, ferrying troops to the ground while the airborne warship prevented anything bigger than fighters from getting to close to the area.

"think that thing can glass us?" Peter asked nervously as he raced along the path towards the location of the AA gun.

"I don't think so" Kat said as she had her helmet zoom in on the Corvette "I think this is one of the lighter variants, at least in terms of armor and armament"

"And yet it's still kicking our collective asses" Peter said as he drove the Warthog over a hill and saw the outpost that the AA gun was set up at.

Peter and Kat saw multiple squads of Grunts patrolling around the structure along with a few Elite Majors that were close to the AA gun itself. The two Spartans shared a look before they both nodded and Peter hit the accelerate while Kat began to fire off short controlled bursts with the Hog's mounted turret. The Grunts shrieked and scatted for cover as several of their own fell to Kat's firing while the Elites used the AA gun for cover and began to return fire with their plasma rifles. Peter did his best to maneuver the Warthog through the plasma shots while allowing Kat to maintain a line of sight on her targets but the Grunts were quick to regroup and began to shoot at the Warthog after it passed them.

"Kat, I don't want to be a front seat driver or anything, but could you maybe kill these guys a little faster before we blow up!" Peter said as several plasma bolts impacted against the windshield, cracking the glass in some places and outright melting it in other. A few green plasma bolts struck Peter's armor, causing the shields to flare.

"I'm trying!" Kat shouted back as she tired to shoot at the Elites but was forced to divert her fire to several Grunts when they began to pepper her form with their plasma pistols.

It was than that a particularly powerful flare at the base of Peter's skull caused him to look around with wide eyes and spotted a lone Elite Ultra to emerge from the structure that housed the AA gun's controls. In its hands was a Type-50 Directed Energy Rifle... and it was aimed right at them.

Peter quickly tried to turn the Warthog as the Elite fired off several plasma projectiles at the Spartans. Peter swore as one fo the rounds impacted against the rear tire of the Warthog, causing it to nearly flip as the back end was shot a few feet into the air before the second shot impacted against the vehicle's side. Peter and Kat were both sent flying from the Warthog as it topped over.

"Six?" Kat said as she quickly scrambled to her feet and drew her rifle and began to fire at the approaching Grunts and Elite Major.

"I'm fine..." Peter groaned as he got back up and made to draw his DMR before he saw that when the Warthog was flipped over and he was flung from the driver's seat, his rifle was knocked off it's magnetic holster on his back and now laid ten feet away from him... outside the cover of the now destroyed Warthog.

"Perfect..." Peter muttered as he drew his sidearm and took the other end of the flipped over Warthog and began to fire at the approaching Covenant squad.

"We need to get that gun online Peter" Kat said as she ducked behind over as a plasma bolt scraped her helmet's shields "Before they decide to drop more troops in"

Peter nodded as he reloaded his pistol and glanced at the approaching Covenant through a small hole in the Warthog. He noted their distance and the distance between his location and the structure with the AA gun's controls. He didn't spot the Ultra, indicating it had either retreated back inside or was somewhere outside his field of view. He quickly pulled his head away from the hole when a stray plasma shot impacted against his helmet's visor, briefly blinding him before it polarized. He glanced at Kat as she reloaded another magazine.

"You up for a race to the structure?" Peter nodded towards the distant building as he moved towards the middle fo the Warthog and crouched.

Kat glanced briefly over the vehicle to see how far it was and how many Covies were between her and it before she crouched back down and gave a faint nod "Like I have a choice"

Peter nodded as he gripped the Warthog's destroyed frame, getting a secure grip on the body before he quickly lifted the several ton vehicle over his head and chucked it at the approaching Covenant squad. The Elite Major barely had time to understand what it saw before it's body was crushed by the incoming makeshift projectile. The Grunts, seeing their squad leader dead, panicked and scattered, allowing Kat to quickly pick them off as she and Peter rushed to the control center for the AA gun.

"Impressive!" Kat said as she shot off a controlled burst at several Grunts, killing one of them and causing two others to run for cover.

"Thanks!" Peter shouted as he saw the other Elite major rallying several Grunts to try and flank him and Kat.

Peter quickly took aim with his pistol and fired off several shots aimed for the Elite's head.

The Alien snarled at Peter as the bullets impacted against it's shield before breaking through and tearing into it's head. The Grunts barely had tome to react before Kat opened fire on them while Peter rushed to the structure and made it inside just in time to see the Elite Ultra approaching the door. The Elite blinked in surprise at Peter before it roared in it's language and tried to raise it's weapon at the Spartan. Peter blitzed the large Alien and rammed his body into it's, causing both their shields to flare before Peter grabbed the Concussion rifle in it's hand sand tired to wrestle it away. The Elite snarled as it tried to wrench it's weapon free from Peter's hands before Peter reared his upper body back and threw it forward in a powerful headbutt. The force of the impact drained the Elite's shields and caused it to stagger back in pain and surprise, allowing Peter to finally wrench the plasma weapon from its hand sand aim at it at point blank range.

"Adios!" Peter said as he fired off several plasma rounds at the Elite, the first one sending it flying back in a small explosion, melting it's armor while the second impacted against it's head, silencing the Alien's cries of pain and rage.

With the Elite down, Peter quickly rushed towards the stair case and ran up tot he rooftop where the AA gun controls were located while mentally questioning who would put such a thing up and out in the open. Kat meanwhile was picking off the last of the Grunts with a recovered Plasma rifle, switching to the alien weapon after she saw that she was down to a single magazine for her rifle and only three for her pistol. She then detected the low hum of the infamous Spirit approaching and looked up to see the dropship heading straight towards her and Peter's locations along with three Banshees.

"Six, get that Gun online now!" Kat said as she raced for cover as one of the Banshees fired off a fuel rod rocket.

"Give me a second" Peter responded as he arrived at the controls and quickly began to activate the Gun with a few keystrokes "There, gun online"

Kat and Peter both watched as the Gun turned towards the approaching Covenant aircraft and began to fire off short control bursts of it's high velocity armor piercing rounds. The Banshees were quickly shot out of the skies while the Spirit tired to push it's way through the onslaught before one of the rounds must have hit a fuel line and erupted into a fire explosion of blue and purple flames.

"That was close" Peter said as he leaped over the side of the rooftop and landed in a crouch beside Kat as the AA gun began to shoot any approaching Banshees.

"Too close..." Kat said as she glanced at their destroyed Warthog and sighed "looks like we're walking to the Comms array"

"Least it's not too far" Peter said as he looked on the ground and picked up a energy pistol and attached it to his armor's second holster clamp on his left leg.

Kat nodded at this and signaled for Peter t follow her as the AA gun behind them continued to shoot any Covenant aircraft that flew too close.

…

Hundreds of lightyears away from Reach, on the very boarder of what was once the 'Outer Colonies' and the 'Inner Colonies' sat a fleet composed of over thirty Covenant vessels. Most of the fleet was made up of the Covenant Navy's infamous CCS-Battle Cruisers and three CPV-class Destroyers. But at the center of the fleet stood a single massive warship that dwarfed the entire fleet several times over. It possessed several bulbous sections and a hook like prow, giving it the appearance of the CAS-class Assault Carrier but many times larger.

The CSO-class Super Carrier, the most powerful warship in the Covenant's Armada.

In deep within the massive near thirty kilometer long warship stood it's commander, an Elite clad in a dark purple armor that looked similar to the Sangheili Combat Harness but more ornate with a equally dark purple cloak warped over the armor's shoulder pauldrons. The Sangheili clad in such a armor was Thel 'Vadamee, Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice. Before the commander was a projected screen of the planet the humans referred to as 'Reach' and next to it a live recording from the CVS-Class Heavy Corvette 'Unyielding Ferocity'.

Thel's eyes scanned the image of Reach and then looked towards the live recording of the Ferocity's attack on a remote outpost on the planet. For some time now he's been monitoring the human stronghold, assessing their defenses strength, reaction time and movements. When Reach's location was first revealed thanks to a spy probe attached to a human warship classified as a 'Destroyer', Thel believed he had located the Human Homeworld, Earth. But after sending a Elite Zealot team to both gather information on the world and the location of several holy relics buried beneath the world's surface, he quickly discovered this was not the case.

But it did mean that the Covenant were getting close... very close.

 _'Destroying this world will not be easy_ ' Thel thought as he watched the live recording while another Elite clad in gold armor climbed on to the platform Thel stood on and bowed to the Supreme Commander with a fist over his chest.

"Commander..." the Elite muttered.

Thel turned towards the Elite and nodded "Speak Shipmaster..."

The Elite straightened himself and spoke "We have received word from High Charity, they shall be diverting the Fleets of Valiant Prudence and Righteous Vigilance under your command when you begin your attack on the human world"

Thel nodded at this, though internally he was displeased at having to command two separate Fleets on top of his own. He knew the other Fleet Masters would not be too fond of the idea of having their fleets, their troops and themselves under the command of another. Thel himself growled at the very idea of having to take orders from another Fleet's commander barring the likes of an Imperial Admiral or a Prophet. He would have to re-evaluate his plans and study up on his new subordinates battle tactics and find a way to make them work with his own preferable way of fighting.

Thel then turned his attention towards the human stronghold again with a frown as new data came in showing that another twelve human warships had entered the system. That made thirty in half has many hours, bringing the world's fleet up to one hundred warships and Thel suspected that more would arrive in the coming days if not hours.

"The humans seemed to be greatly preparing their world for our arrival" the shipmaster said as he came to stand beside Thel.

"Indeed" Thel replied with a nod "If this is the strength they are mustering for a planet that is not their homeworld, it makes me wonder what we shall find when we do reach it"

The gold armored Elite gave his specie's equivalent of a smirk "Assuming there is much of a fleet there to guard their world after we destroy this one"

"Perhaps" Thel nodded as he looked at the new data coming in and frowned "This will not be a easy battle. I'll have to recall all of my ships and troops for this attack"

The shimpmaster frowned at this "Commander, forgive me, but do we really need those savage beats to aid us?"

The 'savage beasts' that the Shipmaster was referring to were the Jiralhanae portion of Thel's fleet. He was one of the very few Sangheili commanders that had incorporated them into his forces and had received quite a bit of controversy because of it from his brethren, both inside his fleet and from others across the Covenant Navy. The Sangheili and Jiralhanae normally operated separately in their own fleets and armies given the two's intense rivalry that has only been stayed by the Prophets and even then just barely. As it was, Thel did his best to keep the conflict between the Jiralhanae and Sangheili under his command to a minimum, bringing them together only when he believed the full might of his forces would be needed and they had something other than one another to concentrate their hate on.

Thel after a few moments of silence, glanced at the shipmaster with a blank expression on his face "The Jiralhanae are useful. Once more, it has been some time since I let War Chieftain Lydus lead his packs into battle. He's getting restless chasing after Axtriox along the fringes of our Empire with nothing to show. Slaughtering the humans should put him in a good mood and perhaps lay to rest any thoughts of him joining that traitor's forces"

"You humor his kind too much Commander. Their animals with manners and discipline to match" the shipmaster boldly stated.

"And yet Lydus has accomplished more than some of even my most accomplished men" Thel said as he glanced back at the shipmaster and waited to see if he would argue his claim.

The shipmaster grumbled under his breath as he turned to leave "I shall... contact the War Chieftain and let him know to regroup with us before we move on the human world"

The nodded as he returned his fool attention tot he images and recordings before him and began to plan as more and more data came pouring in by the Covenant's various spy probes.

Reach would fall, Thel will make sure of it.

…

* * *

And done.

Next chapter, Noble Team fights to retake SWORD Base and drive the Covenant off...


	9. Chapter 9

answers to reviewers questions or statements:

 **Spawn Hades** : I have plans for hos the other Spartans will go. Some of their deaths were good, like Jorge's, but I intend to make Emile and Carter's a bit more epic. We'll see how Peter gets off Reach towards the end of the Fall of Reach arc.

Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo characters seen, mentioned or used.

* * *

"So, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that's the comms relay we have to activate" Peter said as he and Kat laid prone on a small ridge that over looked the comms relay outpost that SWORD control wanted back online.

It was surrounded by over two dozen Grunts and half a dozen of those enhanced Jackals, all armed with carbines, and a few Elite Ultras. And to top it off, a Type-48 Light Assault Gun Carriage, or Revenant was hovering around the station.

"We're gonna need more fire support" Kat said with a frown as she scanned the Covenant defenses "Can't risk using artillery and blowing the place to kingdom come"

"Maybe call in the commander and ask for backup?" Peter suggested as he watched the Revenant patrol the area around the comms relay station.

Kat hummed as she contacted Carter "Commander, Noble Strike"

 _"Go ahead Noble Strike"_ Carter said, the sounds of gun fire echoing in the background.

"We're at the Comms Relay but it's heavily defended and Six and I are low on ammo. Request backup" Kat stated.

Carter was silent for a moment before he spoke _"Negative Noble Strike, the Covenant is hitting the base hard. I can't afford to divert anyone else at the moment"_

Kat hit the mute and let out a curse before she unmute Carter and responded "Copy that, we'll figure something out-"

Kat's response was drowned out by a Pelican flying overhead and began to land behind Peter and Kat with a Warthog attached to it. Peter and Kat shared a look before they both shrugged as Kat updated Carter about the warthog while Peter went to investigate the vehicle. Peter gave the crew chief of the Pelican a nod as the bird began to rise into the air and Peter examined his and Kat's support. Unlike the pervious M12 Warthog that Kat and Peter drove in earlier, this was a M12G1 outfitted with a M68 ALIM Gauss Cannon.

"Yeah, that should take care of that Revenant" Peter said with a nod as he hopped into the driver's seat and began a quick check before starting it up while Kat moved towards the back and hopped on and took control of the cannon.

"Let's get this over with Six, sounds like the Commander needs help securing the base" Kat said as Peter raced off towards the comms relay.

"Got it" Peter said as he and Kat both saw the Covenant taking defensive positions while the Revenant turned towards the approaching Warthog and loaded up it's plasma weapon.

Kat began to fire on the Revenant, the high velocity shells tearing into the alien metal and sending small showers of sparks and metal in the air. The Elite driving roared in rage as he fired off a plasma mortar at the Spartans, forcing Peter to divert his path or risk getting hit. The plasma round impacted against the ground, creating a small explosion of plasma energy and dirt while Kat continued to fire on the Covenant vehicle.

The Revenant tried to outflank the Spartans but a combination of Peter's driving and Kat keeping the Gauss aimed at the Covenant machine prevented the Elite from getting any sort of advantage. Several more shots fired from the cannon, and the Revenant erupted into flames before exploding, sending bits of the alien metal flying. The various Grunts and Elites still alive dove for cover within the building housing the comms relay while several of the elite Jackals made their way to the top of the buildings and began to shoot at the Warthog with their carbines.

"Hey Kat?" Peter said as he did his best to maneuver the Warthog through the numerous plasma bolts flying around.

"What?!" Kat shouted back as she shot at every Covenant solider she could see with the Gauss cannon.

"I think I finally found a name for the super Jackal things" Peter said as a Carbine round struck his armor's shoulder, causing the shields to flare up.

"Oh, and what's that?" Kat said as she fired at the Jackals only to frown as they pulled back out of sight while the Grunts began to run from the buildings with primed Plasma grenades in tehri hands.

"Skirmishers!" Peter proclaimed as he felt the flare at the base of his skull again as the 'Suicide Grunts' rushed towards the Warthog.

"Skirmishers?" Kat said as she fired at one Grunt, completely destroying it's body and sending one of the grenades into another Grunt and causing the second to explode, catching several others in a bright blue electromagnetic plasma cloud of energy.

"Yeah" Peter said with a nod ass he drove the Warthog passed the exploding grunts while trying to avoid being hit by some of the Elites' plasma rifles "They hang back away from the main fighting, take pot shots at us, then pull back and setup somewhere else and start all over again"

"They sound more like Guerilla fighters" Kat stated as she aimed at a Elite minor and fired off another Gauss round, tearing the Elite apart and sending part of it's body flying into the air.

"Yeah, well calling them Guerillas' doesn't seem to fit. That sounds more like something you'd call a Brute" Peter stated as he saw the now named Skirmishers appear again and resume firing on him and Kat's position.

"I can't hit them from here" Kat said as she fired off another Gauss round at the skirmishers only for the avian like aliens to back away from the edge of the rooftop for cover.

Peter nodded as he saw a spot that would give Kat plenty of cover but allow her to keep firing on the remaining Covenant troops without issue. He brought the vehicle to a stop and jumped out and drew his 'borrowed' energy pistol and checked the charge before sprinting to the structure the Skirmishers were suing along with the location of the comms relay. Peter's head throbbed as the flare at the base of his skull acted up while he ran through a storm of energy bolts, doing his best to dodge the small lethal blue and green energy orbs while returning fore with his plasma pistol.

"Peter, what the hell are you doing?" Kat asked as she fired a Gauss round at several Grunts trying to flank Peter as he made it inside the structure that housed the last of the Covenant and their objective.

"Getting the comm relay back online while dealing with the guys up top, why? What are you doing?" Peter asked as he ran up the small stair case two steps at a time, his knife drawn while he began to build up a supercharge for his Plasma pistol.

"Right now, trying to make sure the Covenant you ignored out here in your mad dash tot he comm relay don't cut you off" Kat said as she kept firing round after round from the Gauss cannon.

"I shouldn't be long" Peter said as he arrived at the door that lead to the roof where the Skirmishers were along with the comms relay console.

Peter took a deep breath and prepared to kick down the door before he heard something hit it from the other side followed by a ominous humming that he's long since associated with the plasma grenade. Biting out a cruse, Peter jumped away from the door just as it exploded in a shower of wood and fire before several carbine bolts tore through the air and at his location. Peter flinched as the energy bolts struck his armor, causing his shields to flare as they did their best to absorb the energy while Peter returned fore with his Plasma pistol. The Skirmishers outside dodged the energy bolts, allowing Peter to race back to the door and take cover beside it. He peeked through the doorway to see several Skirmishers trying to get a better angle at his location on the limited space they had while also trying to stay out of the other Spartan's line of fire.

Peter frowned when he saw that one of the Skirmishers was right next to the comms relay panel.

 _'Gotta be careful with that one_ ' Peter thought before he glanced down at his knife and hummed _'This could do the trick, just hope the thing doesn't try to fire off one more shot before it dies and hits the panel'._

After a few seconds Peter adjusted the grip on his knife and emerged in the doorway and threw the serrated blade right at the Skirmisher. It only had a second to squawk in surprise before the blade buried itself deep into it's skull, killing it almost instantly while Peter raised his plasma pistil and fired off two rapid shots at another Skirmisher, scoring a headshot on the second bolt. The alien fell without a sound as Peter scanned the small space for signs of any other Skirmishers and saw two left standing on opposite ends of the roof, their weapons aimed at him. Peter quickly threw his Plasma pistol towards the farther of the two while he sprinted towards the other, covering the distance within two seconds and seized the Skirmisher's weapon and slammed it into the avian creature's face.

The force of the impact dislodged several teeth and caused the Skirmisher to stagger before Peter grabbed it, just as he felt that seemingly omniscient sense trigger. Peter, with his makeshift shield turned just in time for several energy bolts to impact into the still living Skirmisher's body and armor. The alien warrior squawked in pain as several more shots hit it while Peter took the carbine that was in it's hands, rip it out of it's clutches and aim at the last standing Skirmisher with one hand.

It was a little awkward firing a weapon like the Covenant's carbine with only one hand, and several of Peter's shots missed the Skirmisher but he wasn't a Spartan just because he was augmented with a combination of super illegal and highly controversial drugs and thrown into a highly expensive suit of armor. The Skirmisher died with several shots to the chest, one of which seemed to pierce it's heart and it fell without a sound while the Skirmisher in Peter's hands had long since died from the barrage of energy bolts fired at it's body. Peter released the dead alien and scanned the rooftop for any more signs of hostiles before concluding that they've all been dealt with.

"Okay, time to get these comms back on" Peter said as he turned and approached the relay console and began to type in a series of commands to get it back up and running. After a few seconds, the relay was active and Peter nodded in satisfaction and quickly contacted his teammate "Kat, comms are back up"

"I've noticed" Kat said as she watched Peter jump down from the roof and land in a crouch before making his way back to the Warthog.

After a few seconds, Carter contacted Peter and Kat " _Noble Strike, this is Noble Leader. Get back to SWORD base ASAP!"_

"We're on our way now commander" Kat said before she glanced at Peter and nodded in the direction of the ONI facility "Six, let's get moving"

Peter nodded as he hopped back into the Warthog and started it up before hitting the gas and began the return to base while the nearby Covenant Corvette began it's approach while more Spirits and a few Phantoms began deploy from the Covenant warship and begin their approach to the ONI facility.

"Man, they really wanna take this place" Peter said as he saw the number of dropships coming in in the rearview mirror and risking a quick glance over his shoulder "Think they know something ONI wont tell us?"

"Probably" Kat said as she fired off several Gauss rounds towards a squadron of Banshees flying towards them.

The low flying aircraft scattered to avoid the incoming high velocity projectiles but two of the Covenant vehicles weren't fast enough and quickly exploded in a shower of fire and metal.

...

Thousands of Light years away from Reach, along the far edges of Covenant controlled space on a distant world that held as much value as a typical Grunt in a decisive battle, War Chieftain Lydus grunted in displeasure as he wiped more blood off his Gravity hammer's blade while his fellow Brutes were busying themselves with either reloading their weapons, cleaning their weaponry or armor or lazing about until they received further orders. They had just encountered a small strike team of Atriox's accursed 'Banished' and exterminated them with extreme prejudice.

 _'Slaughtering the vermin is almost as fun as killing the human_ s' Lydus thought with a dark grin as he finished cleaning his hammer's blade and examined his reflection.

He frowned when he noticed the damage to his helmet's head crest and concluded he'll have to have it replaced... again.

 _'Dammit'_ the Brute thought with a sigh before he noticed one of his Captain's approaching him.

Lydus quickly stood up, his grip on his hammer's handle was solid and ready to be brought up in case the younger Brute wished to challenge Lydus for command of the Pack. The Jiralhanae doubts it, none of his officers were powerful or popular in the Pack enough to pose a real threat to his command, but one could never be too sure. Lydus was also not blind of defat to how alluring Atriox's lies and words could be to young impressionable Brutes and the other species under his command.

"What is it?" Lydus spoke in a low, deep tone.

"The Supreme Commander calls..." the Brute grunted in response "It appears he has need of us"

Lydus's curiosity was peeked before he nodded "Very well. I shall see what our esteemed leader requires of us"

The Brute nodded and turned to escort Lydus to the command tent to speak with the Supreme Commander personally. Lydus glanced at is Chieftains for a moment and gave a bark to resume whatever it was they were doing before he followed the young officer. The two Brutes exited the small structure that Lydus and his officers used to meet and socialize and made their way through the large camp. Numerous Unggoy and Kig-Yar along with their more reptilian brethren, the Ibie'shan, packed the camp site while their Jiralhanae commanders watched them with varying degrees of boredom, hunger or disinterest.

A few Banshees flew overhead and if Lydus looked up to the clouds long enough he could just make out the ORS-class heavy cruiser that his men came to this world on. They had a few other CCS-class cruiser with them and a single Destroyer, but they remained in higher orbit, on the lookout for any more 'Banished' warships or prevent escape from the planet. Lydus took this time to examine the moral of his troops as he made his way to the center of the camp. Most of them seemed bored and anxious, the Jiralhanae in particular. The War Chieftain filed this away for later as he entered the command tent to see several of his Pack mates monitoring communications with a few of the other camps set up across the planet and the warships they came here on.

"Anything to report?" Lydus asked one of the Majors at a terminal that was in contact with the Heavy cruiser only a few hundred meters above them.

The Brute shook his head "No, though Shipmaster 'Inanraree is growing restless waiting for the Banished to make themselves know again so he may burn them from existence"

Lydus smirked at this "Never let it be said the Sangheili can't be as blood thirsty as us"

The Major nodded at this and resumed his monitoring while Lydus approached the main console that his Supreme Commander contacted him through. Barely a second passed before a life size holographic image of Thel 'Vadamee appeared and Lydus bowed slightly to the Sangheili commander. Lydus rarely showed such respect to a Sangheili, if any, but 'Vadamee has been generous to Lydus and his Brutes, so the War Chieftain was willing to give him some courtesy.

"Supreme Commander..." Lydus muttered as he looked at the young fleet master.

 _"War Chieftain, I take it your hunt for Atriox is going well?"_ 'Vadamee asked with a nod towards the Brute.

"Very well" Lydus chuckled as he patted his hammer "At this rate, I fear the amount of blood I coat my hammer in will rust it beyond use"

'Vadamee hummed at this before he spoke " _We have discovered another Human world. I have been tasked with cleansing it"_

Lydus straightened his back at this while the various Brutes in the command post paused in their duties and glanced at the two high ranking officers in silence. Thel 'Vadamee wasn't the kind of commander to call and boast of his upcoming tasks, the only time he ever contacted Lydus and his forces were when he expected resistance to be high and needed the full force of his army and fleet to destroy it. Lydus blinked at Thel before he began to slowly grin and spoke with an eager tone.

"My men will be ready to leave within the hour, Commander"

Thel nodded at this, seemingly satisfied before a frown appeared on his face, at least Lydus believed it to be a frown.

 _"My fleet will be joined by a few others but I shall remain in command..._ " the Sangheili stated.

"...But?" Lydus asked with a frown.

 _"Their commanders aren't very fond of your kind"_ Thel warned as he folded his arms behind his back _"I will do what I can to keep them in line... but I expect you to do the same for your troops as well, Lydus"_

Lydus grunted "If any conflict arises, my men will not be the ones that started it"

 _"I will hold you to that War Chieftain... I will send you the details of my plans when you're forces are inbound to meet up with mine. With this victory, may we be one step closer to the Great Journey"_ Thel said before the transmission ended.

Silence filled the tent before Lydus glanced at several of the Brutes who handled communications "Give the word, we leave within the hour"

The various Majors and Captains nodded as they went to work sending out Lydus's orders while the War Chieftain exited the tent. The Jiralhanae commander looked around and saw that already his men were moving to secure their equipment for transport and he could hear the cruiser above him begin to lower so as to activate the gravity lift for use. Seeing this, Lydus prepared to return to his quarters and gather his things before he noticed one of his Kig-Yar officers sitting on a crate cleaning his Needle Rifle. It wasn't until Lydus got closer tot he smaller avian like alien that he realized that it wasn't a Kig-yar, but one of the T'vaoan outfitted in a modified combat harness with a equally modified antigravity pack attached to it's back. The T'vaoan's head was also bare, the feathers having been burned off if the scaring on it's face meant anything.

The T'vaoan paused in it's maintenance of it's rifle and looked up at Lydus with bright green eyes before it quirked it's head to the side and spoke in a raspy tone "Are we moving out?"

Lydus nodded at the avian like being "Yes. The Supreme Commander has been tasked with exterminating another human world. He has called back all of his ships and troops for this"

The T'vaoan grinned at this before it turned to the small pile of Banished Unggoy and Sangheili by it's crate, all with spikes from the Brute's infamous Spikers and unignited needler rounds still protruding from their corpses.

"Good... I was getting tired of killing heretics"

...

* * *

And done.

Next chapter, Securing SWORD Base...


	10. Chapter 10

answers to reviewers questions or statements:

Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo characters seen, mentioned or used.

* * *

It didn't take long for the two Spartans to get back to ONI facility, most of the Covenant troops outside having been either dealt with by Peter and Kat or being picked up by either a Phantom or Ghost and carried into the interior of the facility where they were engaged in a feverish battle for control of the facility with the installation's main security force... or what was left of it by this point.

"You think any more people are being sent out way?" Peter asked as he turned on to the path that would take him and Kat right back to the gates of SWORD Base "Maybe a few Marine or Army platoons? A warship for the Corvette hopefully? Cause I left my nukes in my now outdated armor back at my last duty station"

"I'm sure command as something in mind" Kat said as she kept her eyes on the road ahead and behind their Warthog for any signs of Covenant armor or attack craft"

Peter hummed at the answer as he drove the Warthog up the ridge and finally came within sight of the gate that used to exit the facility earlier and hit the brakes almost immediately.

"Oh shit..." Peter said with wide eyes as he and Kat took in the Covenant force outside the besieged facility's closed gates.

Three Revenants, two Ghosts and over several dozen Grunts with four visible Elites and over twenty Jackals along with the newly dubbed Skirmishers. Peter and Kat booth shared a look of concern. They both knew that thy did not have the firepower or armor to take on that much Covenant firepower, the Gauss cannon was down to a few dozen shots as it was and both Spartans were low on ammo for their own weapons.

"So, how do you wanna do this?" Peter questioned as he glanced at the small strike force "Try to lure them away and double back?"

"Take too long" Kat muttered as she scanned the various Covenant troops and vehicles while keeping an eye out for any Banshees or dropships. after a few seconds, a thought came to her and she looked at Peter "You still have the target locator?"

"Uhh… I left it in the first warthog we used" Peter said sheepishly "Forgot to grab it, hehehehe…"

Kat stared at Peter for several long seconds before she loudly inhaled and exhaled through her nostrils "Then, I guess we're gonna have to do this the hard way..."

She took control of the cannon and loaded a new round in it "Drive, I'll do my best to thin them out. After that, we make a break for the gate and get inside and hope we can find some spare ammo lying around"

"Riiight…" Peter said as he shifted the Warthog into 'drive' and hot the gas, accelerating towards the Covenant strike force.

Kat didn't wait for the Covenant troops to notice her and Peter, she aimed at the nearest enemy, which happened to be a Ghost, and fired off two shots in rapid succession. The high velocity rounds struck the Ghost, one in the main body, sending bits of metal up in the air and causing it to start smoking dark blue smoke and the other struck the Elite operating it. The rest of the strike force quickly took notice of the Warthog and began to fire on it with a multitude of blue and green plasma bolts and a few of the pink needler crystals. Peter did his best to weave his way through the hurricane of alien fire, using his sort of six sense as a guide through the onslaught as he did his best to keep himself and Kat from ending up as charred corpses.

Their armor and shields were good, far better than the highly advance and highly experimental SPI-Armor that the two were fitted with on previous engagements, at least Peter thinks Kat was also equipped with it at some point. Aside from the Headhunters, Peter has never seen any other Spartan Threes outfitted with the gear he had as ONI's personal Grim Reaper.

' _Then again, I was never around any other Spratns to begin with except Headhunters, and that was rare in of itself'_ Peter thought as a needler round shot pass his visor, close enough to cause his shields to flare in response as they steadily dropped closer and closer to zero.

Peter didn't even want to think about how bad the Warthog he and Kat were in. The fact it felt like the back left tire wasn't working and the windshield was all but melted or filled with holes and cracks was clue enough that it wasn't long for the world.

Still ,the Spartan did his best to avoid being hit too many times while Kat's shots seemed to be going everywhere, which they probably were since the two were nearly surrounded on all sides by Covenant infantry and vehicles. Kat did her best to ignore the sounds of her armor's alarm going off as her shields dropped to zero and the suit itself began to take hits, shooting at anything that didn't look remotely human. The Gauss seemed to be almost automatic with the speed she fired off each shell, killing or maiming several Covenant troops with each shot and taking out another Revenant with two well aimed hits. Peter then saw that there was a clear path towards the gates and without a second thought, hit the gas and raced through the hail of plasma bolts towards it while Kat fired off the last of the Gauss rounds.

"Better move Peter, cannon's out" Kat warned as she drew her rifle and began to fire off single shots towards the approaching Covenant best she could as Peter drove a Warthog with only two and a half operation tires.

"Noted" Peter said as he brought he damaged vehicle to a stop at the gates and quickly hopped out and ran to the controls just as they received a call from Noble's sniper.

 _"We're stalled in the tower atrium. Kat, Peter, where the hell are you two?"_ Jun asked with a combination of annoyance and impatience.

"Sorry sunshine, Kat saw a lovely pair of boots on sale to go with her armor and I got sidetracked ay a OsCorp store" Peter said with a snort as he hit the open button for the gate "We're just outside the gate. Should be there in a few minutes, assuming Kat doesn't think she needs a new armor set to go with the boots"

The gate slowly opened to the two Spartans and they quickly rushed in as several mortar rounds from the last Revenant struck the ground not too far from them. One of the plasma rounds hit close enough to the Warthog that the force of the explosion sent the scorched vehicle tumbling on it's side. Peter glanced at the gate controls and quickly hit the close button and watched as the gates stopped halfway in opening and began to slowly close back up. Peter felt the flare at the base of his skull again and looked up just in time to see the lone Revenant and over a dozen Grunts, all armed with Needlers and led by a white armored Elite appearing over the small hill.

"Sorry we're close better luck tomorrow!" Peter shouted with a laugh as the gates closed just as the Covenant troops opened fire.

Peter chuckled a little more as he could hear the energy bolts colliding with the re-enforced gate before he turned to see Kat toss him a DMR she found. The dark armored Spartan nodded in thanks to Kat as she offered him a few ammo clips that he secured to his armor while checking to see that the rifle was fully loaded and appeared to be functional.

He did his best to avoid the blood that coated it's side as he followed Kat back up the small street to the main portion of the base. They encountered a few Grunts and regular Jackals but noting that the two Spartans couldn't handle with a few well timed shots and a grenade ot two here and there. It wasn't untilt hey reached the gates to what looked like some sort of loading bay or garage that the Spartans found themselves challenged.

A pair of Hunters, along with several Elite minors and one Ultra were attacking, no slaughtering several squads of ONI security troopers. Peter and Kat both shared a look as they checked their ammo before they entered the area and began to fire on the Hunters, hoping the Security force, or what was left of them, could handle the Elites. The massive alien worm gestalts paused in their assault on the humans and turned their attention to the two newcomers and responded appropriately… by firing off their fuel rod cannons at them.

"Incoming!" Peter shouted as he saw the green glow building in the cannon before it fired at him and Kat.

The two Spartans separated and dove for cover, Peter behind a blood stained, bullet ridden stone column while Kat ducked behind a scorched barricade. Peter appeared from behind his cover and began to open for eon the closest of the Hunters with his DMR, focusing on the head more than anything else, particularly the neck. The Hunter's torso and back was covered in a thick layer of armor that Peter's seen withstand rockets fired from M41's in the past. So the best way to bring down a Hunter was to go for the gaps in the armor and hit the worms that make up the gestalt directly, but even then the little slitter's were tough.

 _'Thank god that the Covenant decided to not give these guys shields..._ ' Peter thought as he did his best to keep moving, so long as he moved, the Hunters couldn't get a proper target to blast.

Then again, with fuel rod cannons for weapons, they don't need to be too accurate to possibly score a hit.

Peter had just made it to another column to take cover behind when the Hunter he's been firing on, orange blood leaking down it's chest from the eight shots Peter put in it's head and neck area, fired. The Spartan felt hat ominous flare at the base of his skull and almost against his will, his body moved and leaped away from the column just as the fuel rod cannon beam hit it, destroyed the stone and blanketing the immediate area around it in burning green plasma. Peter rolled with the blast and came up on one knee and aimed at the Hunter and fired off several more rounds at the Hunter's head before it's arms finally dropped and the lumbering beast fell forward on to the deck with a loud and heavy 'thud'.

Peter only a split second to feel victorious before he felt the flare at the base of his skull and turned just in time to see the Hunter's bond brother charging towards him with a animalistic rage that would put a Brute to shame several times over at least.

"Oh fuck me" Peter said with panic as he fired at the approaching Hunter while trying to move out of it's way.

Peter however, underestimated the Hunter's speed and was rewarded with a smack from it's massive thick armored shield that reduced his shields to zero, cracked and dented the chest portion of his armor, cracked something else underneath all the armor, and sent him flying several meters into the wall with enough force the send the Spartan several inches through it.

"...Fuuuuck" Peter groaned in pain, his vision blurry and the sound of the armor's alarm ringing in his ears and the taste of blood in his mouth.

Peter was certain that if his shields hadn't been at one hundred percent when the Hunter hit him and he wasn't already trying to back away so he caught the upper, thinner end of the shield instead of the full blunt if it... he'd be dead.

Peter did his best to pry himself out of the small hole his body made and fell to the floor in a pained heap. He could feel the seemingly thunderous booms of the Hunter's boots as it stomped towards him, ignoring the fire from Kat's assault rifle as she tired to get it's attention away from her downed teammate. Peter looked up with blurry vision to see the Hunter before him, raising it's shield to bring down and crush him before Kat suddenly was on the Hunter's back, causing it to roar loudly as it began to try and shake it's passenger off while they emptied an entire clip of their side arm into it.

' _Die, die, die, fucking die already!'_ Kat mentally seethed as she fired shot after shot of her pistol into the back of the Hunter's neck, spraying it's orange blood on to her visor and armor as she did her best to hold on to the collar of it's armor.

Finally, the Hunter stopped moving and it's body slumped forward just as Kat had finally emptied the last of her clip's rounds into the massive alien being. Thankfully, it stepped away from Peter when it tried to dislodge Kay so when it fell forward, it was on to the ground and not her wounded teammate. The blue armored Spartan hopped off the dead Hunter and turned just in time to see Peter shakily rising to his feet before stumbling back down to his knees.

"Six, you still with me?" Kat asked as she came and kneeled by Peter and took in his condition.

His armor was heavily damaged on the front and the back and she could see that the hit had caused a tear in the tech suit they wore underneath their armor and he was bleeding.

"UGH, I feel like someone ran me over in a Warthog... when I was still in SPI armor" Peter groaned as he struggled back to his feet "Fuck that thing hits hard"

"Your lucky it didn't kill you" she stated as she looked to see that the Security Force had finished off the Elites, though she counted only four men still standing, if barely, and another three that appeared to be alive, but their days as physical security were likely done. She then turned her attention back to Peter "Can you still continue?"

"Yeah... just give me a second to catch my breath" Peter coughed as he suddenly removed his helmet and spat out enough blood to raise alarms in Kat's mind.

"I'm calling a medic" she said and was about to also contact Carter and let him know that Peter was done for the mission before said Spartan grabbed her arm with enough force to drag her eyes back to meet his stony expression.

"I said... I'm good" Peter said in a more forceful tone while blood continued to drip from his mouth before he spat it out and placed his helmet back on "Come on, we can use an elevator to get inside"

Kat watched Peter wander over and grab his DMR, check to make sure it was still good, before heading for the elevator. Noble's second in command shook her head at Peter's stubbornness before she followed after him and arrived at his side just as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside and hit the 'up' button.

"If you collapse sand die on us in the middle of a firefight, it's your fault" she said in a tense tone.

"I've had worse and fought in worse" Peter said with a snort as he leaned against the wall and took shallow breaths to avoid aggravating what he assumed was either cracked or even broken ribs.

He'd have to be careful, he concluded, or else he's risk a lung puncture and even he can't survive that.

Several tense seconds passed as the elevator climbed and shook before it came to a sudden stop. Peter made a dry comment about reaching their floor as he and Kat rechecked their equipment and ammo while the doors opened and had just into what they assumed was the main security office when a Jackal was sent flying through a glass window. Both Peter and Kat aimed their rifles at it before a single figure leaped through the now shattered window and landed in a crouch. Peter's eyes widened as he lowered his weapon as the figure turned towards him.

"What the hell?" he said in shock as the figure smirked at Peter and spoke with a light Russian accent.

"Hello Мой паук… you've seen better days, no?"

Kat frowned as she glanced back and forth between Peter and the red headed woman before them "Six, you know this woman?"

"Y-Yeah..." Peter said with a slight stumble "She was... uh, she was my main handler when I was doing Ops for ONI"

Kat quirked a brow at this before she glanced back at the apparent ONI spook. She was beautiful, there was no denying that, even with her face covered in dried blood, her shoulder length hair slightly singed on one side, and what looked like the beginning of a black eye forming on her left eye. She was outfitted with the standard black and dark grey armor that most ONI Security forces wore and she had a MA2B assault that looked like it's seen better days and two M6C's attached to a magnetic holster on each of her legs.

The woman smirked at Peter before her gaze drifted to Kat "Ah, I assume you are part of the new squad that Peter here was assigned to?"

"Yes" Kat said with a frown.

The woman hummed at this before she saw the Jackal she threw through a window was still moving. She sighed as she approached the still breathing alien and without pause, put three rounds in it's head, splattering the floor with it's blood, brains and skull fragments. She then glanced back at the two Spartans, her gaze lingering on Peter a little longer than Kat thought was appropriate before she nodded at them and pointed down the hall.

"The rest of your team is that way"

Peter and Kat followed her finger before the former nodded and glanced at his old handler "Thanks"

"Don't mention it" she said with a small grin as she made her way pass the two and entered the elevator they exited "Do try to stay alive Peter. I'm curious to see if your answer has changed yet..."

Kat frowned as the door closed and the elevator began it's descent. She glanced at Peter with a questioning look under her visor as she nodded towards the elevator "What's she mean by that?"

"Hmm?" Peter said as he glanced at Kat before he shrugged and turned away from the elevator and began to head in the direction of their fellow Spartans "Oh nothing... just a little running joke between us, that's all"

Before Kat could comment, Peter turned and headed in the direction of the rest of the team, leaving Kat to watch him go before she quickly followed. But she couldn't help but take a quick glance at the dead Jackal on the floor and the window it was sent through.

 _'Jackals aren't heavy, but their not light either...'_ Kat thought with a frown _'And I know for a fact that window had to be bullet proof... you'd need a considerable amount of force to break through that, even if you ate using a body to break it'_

Kat shook her head and filed that little thought away for later, right now she and her team had a Covenant assault to beat.

It didn't take long for the two Spartans to arrive in a large multistory room filled to the brim with Covenant soldiers, most of them being Jackals, Grunts and Skirmishers with a handful of Elite Minors and a Major leading them. Carter, Jun and Jorge were already there, aiding what was left of the outgunned and outmanned Security force in pushing the alien invaders back.

"Well look who deiced to show up" Jun said dryly as he raised his DMR and fired off a round at a Elite minor, the bullet tearing through the last of it's shields and into it's head.

"Sorry, had to get a slap on the back from a Hunter for killing it's other half" Peter snarked as he took up his place next to the sniper and helped him pick off the Elites and Skirmishers on the higher levels firing down at the humans with a combination of their Carbines and some sort of rifle that Peter thought looked like a needler of some sort.

Jun chuckled at this while Kat made her way next to Carter as he reloaded his rifle "Where's Emile?"

"Up top doing his best to keep the Covenant from dropping in more troops with their dropships" the commander said as he slapped in a new magazine for his assault rifle and glanced towards Peter and Jorge "Peter, head up and help Emile, Jorge make sure he get's there in one piece!"

"Understood" the Spartan two said from his cover as he glanced at Peter "You ready?"

"Age before beauty" Peter quipped as he ducked under a needler round "Also go slow, I'm having trouble breathing"

"Work on your cardio when we get back to base then" Jorge chuckled before he emerged from his cover and began to unleash a torrent of bullets from his M247H machine gun, affectionally named Etilka.

Numerous Grunts and Jackals were torn apart by the heavy barrage as Jorge advanced forward, his shield's flaring constantly as the Covenant tried to focus their fire on him before they were cut down by a combination of his turret's fire and Peter who quickly followed him from behind. Kat watched them go before she glanced back at Carter as he almost bisected a Grunt with how much bullets he put in the meter high alien's torso.

"You should have sent me or Jun" she said in a tense tone "We don't need another teammate this soon"

"You saying he can't do it?" Carter said as he glanced at his second in command with a frown.

He wasn't blind to the state of Peter's armor and he could only assume how bad the man was underneath it, but the spartan was so far, keeping pace with Jorge. They were already on the second floor and clearing it of hostiles as they made their way up to Emile's location.

"He's stubborn" Kat said as she laid down suppressive fire for Carter while he reloaded and Jun moved to a better spot to snipe the Skirmishers on the higher levels of the room.

"Well kettle, he is a pot" Carter said with a smirk in his voice "And he even comes in black"

Kat scowled at her leader as she was forced to duck behind cover as more Covenant began to appear from other rooms in the facility "How many more of the se bastards are there?"

"According to Dot, their gathering in here" Carter said as he and Kat emerged from cover and returned fire "It's the dropships and Corvette outside I'm worried about. We're gonna run out of people and bullets before they run out of troops"

...

"About damn time you all showed up" Emile said as Peter and Jorge finally reached his location towards the top of the building, a massive hole torn into it and exposing it to the outside world.

"Sorry, had to use the bathroom on the way up and then we got sidetracked by the souvenir store" Peter said as he blasted the brains of a Jackal all over the wall as he and Jorge took cover behind a chunk of metal and stone.

"And no before you ask Emile, we didn't get you a shirt" Jorge said as he set up Etilka's bipod to give him better accuracy for longer distances.

The two Spartans looked outside the hole and were given a rather uncomfortably close view of the hovering Corvette outside and several Spirits inbound with Banshee escorts. Peter quickly looked around for anything bigger he could use aside from his nearly empty DMR before she saw a rocket launcher on the ground, next to a bisected ONI security officer. Peter did his best to ignore the man's intestines littering the floor as he grabbed the weapon and checked to see that it was fully loaded and took aim at the nearest Banshees along with Jorge while Emile concentrated on the Phantoms with his own rocket launcher.

It was than that SWROD command spoke through the comms _"Commander this base wont survive another salvo from that corvette, take out those drop ships and Banshees!"_

 _"Emile, Peter, Jorge, how are things up there? We need those Longswords in the air now!"_ Carter said over the sound of gunfire on his end.

"Working on it commander" Peter said as he blasted another Banshee out of the sky while Jorge helped Emile take down a approaching Phantom before it could drop off more troops.

 _"Get it done Noble and we can kiss our asses goodbye"_ Carter said before ending the call.

"Well at least he's honest in what he expects from us and what happens if we fail" Peter said as he reloaded the last two missiles for his rocket launcher just as Emile and Jorge destroyed one of the last Phantoms.

Soon the three Spartans were focusing all their fire on the last remaining dropship as it attempted to return fire with it's plasma cannons, but a combination of the smoke from the building and debris from when the wall was blasted through provided ample cover for the three super soldiers. Bullets and rockets slammed into it's hull, sending bits of metal and fire into the air before one of Peter's rockets scored a hit near one of the engines and the aircraft began to loose altitude before two more rockets fried from Emile caused it to ignite in a bright blue and purple explosion.

"Commander, the last of the air forces are down, I repeat the last of the air forces are down" Jorge reported to Carter while Peter slumped against the bulkhead he was using for cover.

"Finally..." Peter said as he swallowed some blood and nearly gagged at the taste as he, Jorge and Emile watched the Covenant warship began to turn, it's engines firing up as it made to flee.

Before Peter could say anything, two longswords flew by and chased after the Corvette, causing Peter to chuckle "Hate to say it, but their gonna need more than that to take that thing down"

"Just give it a second" Jorge said as he watched the fighters chase the Corvette as it tired to flee before suddenly a MAC round fired from either a ship in orbit or a platform tore through it's hull, causing the engines to flicker as explosions began to run up and down it's frame.

"Oh... now they decide to use MAC rounds" Peter said dryly.

"Beautiful, ain't it? Someone should take a picture" Jorge said as he came to stand next to Peter while they watched as the Corvette went down, purple and blue flames erupting from it's hull as it fell into the icy waters beneath it.

"You think a ship crashing into the water is beautiful and worth a picture?" Peter asked with a snort as he pushed himself off the bulkhead, wincing slightly at the pain in his chest "Jorge, you have issues"

"So I've been told" Jorge chuckled before he patted Peter in the shoulder gently, mindful to not hit the wounded Spartan too hard "Nice work by the way"

"I aim to please" Peter said with a grin.

It was than that Carter's voice fileted though their com links " _Five, Six... Get down to the science wing. Doctor Halsey wants a debrief, and Command's saying we're all hers."_

"Repeat? Sounded like you said 'Halsey'" Jorge said as he tapped on his helmet to make sure he heard right.

 _"I did"_ Carter responded with amusement.

"Copy that, on our way" Jorge responded as he turned towards Peter and gestured for him to follow as Emile hopped down from his place and followed the two "Don't need Command to tell me... Been all hers half me life"

"So we're gonna meet the woman that's responsible for the creation of the Spartan Program?" Peter said before he rolled his eyes under his helmet "Hurray…"

"Not a fan of the child snatching hag I take it?" Emile asked.

"Nope" Peter said with a shake of his head before he glanced towards Jorge "Sorry"

"It's alright, most of the others on the team aren't too fond of her either" Jorge said with a chuckle.

"Then why are you still?" Peter asked with curiosity "Being around the others has to have washed away that Stockholm syndrome all you Two's seem to have for her"

"Eh their getting there. Maybe another year or two and I'll probably disliking her like the rest of the team seems to" Jorge admitted with a hidden grin as the sounds of the Covenant Corvette in the distance exploding ended the conversation for the time being.

…

It didn't take long for the trio to reach where the rest of Noble Team in the science wing. Halsey was present, though she was behind a shield wall and currently speaking to Carter who had since removed his helmet along with Kat.

"I requested your assistance, Commander, and do not need a report on events that occur on my own doorstep. What I do require is a detailed account of your previous engagement-"

Halsey stopped as she saw Jorge and Peter enter the room behind Emile who took up his place along the wall by Jun who had his helmet off as well and held under his arm with his sniper rifle leaning next to him.

"Jorge…" she said in a much happier tone compared to how she spoke to Carter "It's been too long"

"Ma'am" he responded as he removed his helmet and gave her a small nod.

It was than she saw the state of his armor and her face contorted into something between amusement and annoyance "What have you done to my armor?"

"Just some… additions I've made" Jorge said with a cough, aware that his armor was far more customized compared to what the current Spartan Twos were about to be outfitted with in a few weeks.

"Indeed" Halsey said dryly before she turned back to Carter and her amusement dropped "Visegrád Relay. Its data center was home to one of my xeno-archaeologists, Professor Laszlo Sorcad. Perhaps you could shed some light on his death"

"If he was a civilian male in his mid-sixties, he died with a Covenant Energy Sword through his abdomen" Carter responded.

"Elites, then." Halsey said, her eyes narrowing.

"They engaged us as well" Jorge supplied "It was just, uh... just after we found a young boy that who was a family frei-"

"Irrelevant" Halsey cut him off coolly "The Elites. Tell me more about them."

"Three" Jorge said in a equally cool tone "Zealot class. One got by us. The leader, from the looks of him"

"Zealots? You're certain?" Halsey pressed.

"Their armor configuration matched." Jorge answered.

"So did their combat skills. Almost did me in if it wasn't fore Noble Five here…" Peter said as he rubbed the spot where the Elite stabbed him with it's energy dagger. Zealots were one of the few Elite classes that Peter's encountered that could ever go toe to toe with either a Spartan Two or Three… and on a number of occasions, they've won those fights.

"I gave the order not to pursue. Our primary objective was to get the station's relay back online." Jorge informed the doctor who looked at him sharply.

"Your primary objective? Commander, are you a puppet or a Spartan?" said in a tone that caused the team, Jorge included, to bristle at how she addressed their leader.

Carter for the most part took the insult in stride but was curious as to why Halsey thought that these Elites were so important "Ma'am?"

Halsey rolled her eyes at this as she decided to explain why it was that Carter letting just one of the Elites get away may end up coming back to bite humanity in the ass.

"There are those at ONI, myself included, who believe the Covenant dispatch Elite advance teams to hunt down artifacts of value to their religion. Survivor accounts suggest such teams are small, nimble, and almost always Zealot-class. No doubt they came to the station for the abundance of ONI excavation data stored there... And you let them get away." She said in an unimpressed tone.

Carter's eyes narrowed at this "Data retrieval was not a command directive. Even had we known, we had other, more urgent matters to attend to."

"Like warning the planet." Kat said as she glanced at Halsey with an equally unimpressed look that the doctor has been giving them, minus Jorge, since they arrived.

"Professor Sorvad's final entry in his field notes made reference to 'a latchkey discovery'. Latchkey... Not a word he would use lightly. So let's hope that the data module your Lieutenant Commander stole... contains it." Halsey said as she turned her attention towards Noble Team's second in command.

"Kat?" Carter said with surprise.

"Before you ask, I was alerted the moment you attempted to access its contents, as I am with any unauthorized tap." Halsey said as Kay approached the shield door and removed a small data module that they had recovered from the Relay several days ago. She dropped the module into a container that extended out from the shield door and watched as Halsey pulled it to her side "That data is classified Tier One... I could send you to the brig for interfering with my work"

"Make sure there's room for two Spartans" Kat said as she shot Peter a look who shrugged in response.

"Hey, you said you wanted in, you never said make sure they can't tell it's been hacked" Peter said.

"Maybe you'd like to join them" Carter said as he drew Halsey's attention back to him, mainly because of the slight threatening tone his voice now took once she began to threaten his teammates.

"…I'm sorry?" she said with her eyes narrowing slightly.

"We're currently under emergency planetary directive, Winter Contingency. I'm sure you're familiar with the punishment for civilian interference with a Spartan deployment." Carter said to the doctor.

"Are you threatening me, Commander?" she asked in amusement and slight anger.

"Just making a reading suggestion ma'am" Carter said as he turned and began to make his way out of the lab with Kat right behind him "Let's move, Noble Team"

"Finally…" Emile muttered as he pushed off the wall while Jun picked up his rifle and followed after the others.

Jorge and Peter stayed back for a moment, Jorge as he watched as Halsey examined the data module and Peter because he was waiting to see if Jorge would follow.

"Ma'am?" he asked as he placed his helmet on.

"That will be all Jorge" she said as she continued to look at the data module.

Peter then tapped the taller Spartan on the shoulder "Let's go big man, last man out has to sit next to Emile on the way back"

Jorge snorted as he followed Peter out of the room, leaning Halsey alone for the moment before a new voice spoke up even though it's owner was nowhere in the room.

 _"Well, that was entertaining. Nice to see that your social skills are still top notch Doctor Halsey"_

Halsey rolled her eyes at this "Shut up Cortana..."

 _"Well that's just rude!"_

...

* * *

And done.

Next chapter, Armor repairs, recollections and debriefing...


	11. Chapter 11

answers to reviewers questions ot statements:

 **DannyPhantom619** : Oh you have no idea the kinds of hell these two will raise.

 **Gamerslegacy** : There will be one Marvel woman at the moment and we just met her last chapter.

 **90skid4life** : Possibly, I think I have a way for them to actually interact, physically speaking. But it'll be a while till we get to that, like the events of Halo 4 while.

 **Movienerd74** : A few might and Cortana may or may not troll them because of it while one uping them every step of the way.

 **hadrian le fay** : The reason why Carter was flying the Pelican was because Peter was tasked with getting the AI to the Autumn and the skies were too heavily patrolled by the Covenant for them to make it and the Pelican was too heavily damaged, it's not because Carter was a crap pilot, and the Scarabs were hardly the issue. And Kat not moving fast enough wasn't the issue, the issue was that her armor's shields had gone offline because of he radiation spike from the Covenant glassing. And what are the chances that if one of the saber pilots or Marines that was with Six and Five will even survive long enough to set off the bomb, the ship was still filled with Covenant soldiers and would have a higher chance of dying then Jorge did. Several of the women are Spartans and Peter in this is a Spartan, they're gonna be working together a lot because there's gonna be so few left until the end of the war, so I'm not sure how they won't be working together often. And just because Miranda is an un-augmented human doesn't mean she still can't be with Peter, Buck and Veronica are still together and he's a Spartan. And Linda doesn't have a suppressed sex drive, plenty of Spartans have shown romantic feelings to others and just because Cortana is an AI doesn't mean she and Peter can't have a relationship, it wont be physical obviously, but not all romances need physical intimacy.

Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo chracaters seen, mentioned or used.

* * *

Reach July 27, 2552, 00:15 hours...

If there's one draw back to the hyper advance Mjolnir armor, aside from the cost, it's weight, bulk and difficulty repairing, it was how long it took to remove after a mission. The process would take even longer if the suit sustained extensive physical damage to the outer and inner layers of the suit, which Peter's had when he was struck by a Hunter on his last mission.

"Are you guys almost done yet?" Peter asked with a sigh as he watched the technicians slowly remove the chest portion of his armor while trying to not agitate his fractured ribs "You guys seem to be taking longer than usual"

"Sorry sir, but parts of the armor caved into your chest and punctured the bodysuit you have underneath. We're worried if we move to fast it could cause even more damage" one of the techs said with a sympathetic expression on his face.

Peter grumbled in annoyance while the rest of Noble Team, all de-armored and outfitted in their own titanium nanocomposite bodysuits, stood by and waited for their teammate to finish up.

"Complaining isn't going to make the process go by any faster Six" Jorge chuckled as he watched the techs try to safely remove the armor from Noble's newest member as fast as they reasonably could.

"Easy for you to say, you've been out of your armor for twenty minutes now" Peter responded as the techs finally began to slowly remove the chest piece while several others behind him began to work on the damaged back piece "And this armor's digging into places that I'd rather not mention in the presence of a lady"

At this, Jorge slapped Emile on the shoulder "Well you heard him Emile. Bests step out for a few minutes so you don't feel uncomfortable when the tech's begin to take the man's armor off"

"Fuck you" Emile said dryly.

Jorge grinned while Carter spoke with the head tech in regards to the time it'll take to repair Peter's armor for their next mission.

"It might take a few days for us to even begin making any sort of repairs sir..." the tech said as he went over the extensive internal damage of Spartan B-312's armor "Command is pushing us to finish the rest of the Mark-V's for the Spartan-II's for an upcoming mission"

"What mission?" Carter asked with a frown, casting a curious glance at Jorge who looked equally perplexed.

"Don't know sir" the tech said with a shrug "All I know is that Doctor Halsey wants the newest suits to be outfitted with a new crystalline layer that will allow a Spartan to support carrying a A.I. for field operations"

Carter quirked a brow at this while Peter spoke up as the chest piece of his armor was finally removed and a few techs and a on scene medic began to asses the damage to his chest while the back portion of his armor was finally removed.

"Wait, how come we aren't getting that kind of upgrade to our armor?" Peter asked.

"Are you willing to wait three weeks for it?" the tech said as he glanced at Peter with a quirked brow.

Peter blinked at this before he sighed "My new armor better have it..."

"We'll be sure to let command know. Maybe if we ask nicely, they'll give us the hand me downs" Kat said dryly as she leaned against a console and watched as the techs began to store Peter's armor away for maintenance at a later date, hopefully before their new mission.

"What's wrong with our current armor?" Jun asked with a snort as he folded his arms across his chest "Isn't our state of the art tech good enough? Or do you prefer the cheap SPI armor with zero energy shielding, less protection then the bodysuits were wearing now and even less fancy gizmos that make us more effective than several squads of ODSTs combined'?"

"Well when you put it like that..." Peter said as he stepped off the fitting station platform while a medic followed him with a pad that showed a X-ray shot of his chest cavity and his slowly healing ribs.

"I'm sure our armors will be fitted with something like that at a later time Peter" Carter said with a grin.

"Assuming we're not sent out on a suicide mission" Emile said in a bored tone.

"Don't jinx us, jackass" Kat said as she slapped the back of the man's head hard enough to cause him to wince in pain.

"What, you know it's true" Emile said as he rubbed his head "Also how the hell does your normal hand hurt more than your prosthetic?"

"Fuck you, that's how" Kat replied with a smirk, causing Peter and Jun to snicker at Emile as he scowled at the woman.

Peter was about to say something before he heard a sound of surprise from the medic following him. He glanced at the shorter man with a raised brow.

"There a problem?" he asked.

The medic blinked up at Peter before he returned his attention to the tablet in his hands "Uh no sir. It's just... well it's just your ribs are already healing at a remarkably fast rate. In fact if I'm reading this right, they could be fully healed in a few hours"

Peter shrugged in response to the medic's baffled expression while the rest of Noble Team looked at Peter with varying degrees of curiosity, minus Kat and Carter. Before Peter could say anything, an announcement was made over the room's intercoms requesting Spartan B-312's presence in the medical wing.

"Oh joy..." Peter said dryly while Carter nodded towards the man.

"Get moving Six"

"Aye sir. Come on doc, you can better examine my miraculous healing while even more doctors poke and prod at me" Peter said with a sigh as he made his way towards the door with the medic right behind him, still reading his vitals.

…

"So tell me Peter, how have you been since we've last met?" Professor Agnes said as she reviewed Peter's medical charts and compared his rate of healing and previous injures to what she was monitoring now.

"Fine" Peter said with a shrug as he sat on a bed while the doctor examined him after he was dropped off here and the medic that accompanied him was sent on his way by the good doctor.

Though Peter thought associating 'good' with Professor Agnes was a bit insulting... for 'good'.

The Spartan-III doesn't know too much about Professor Agnes other than that she was sixty nine but looked ten years older, divorced with no children and used to work on the Spartan-II program, particularly the area that dealt with their biological health and augmentations, before she was reassigned to the Spartan-III's after the eradication of Alpha Company during Operation: PROMETHEUS for the same purpose. After Peter graduated and was reassigned to ONI and underwent further augmentations that mirrored the legendary Project Rebirth, she was assigned to be his personal doctor of sorts. At least, that was the answer that Peter was given when he questioned it.

"That's good to hear" Agnes said as she brought another screen up to examine the state of Peter's ribs "I see your healing is as fast as ever. You should be fine by this afternoon"

"Yippie" Peter said with a dry smile "Cant wait to get back out there and get shot at by genocidal aliens"

The Professor chuckled at this "It could be worse"

"That it could... that it could..." Peter said with a small nod as he leaned back on a pillow on the bed "So Professor, not that I don't mind seeing you, but what brings you all the way back to Reach? I thought you were assigned back to..." Peter trailed off as he tried to think of a way to mention Onyx without actually mentioning it "The other facilities"

Agnes snorted at this as she typed a few notes down on her tablet "ONI is thinking of starting up a third class of Spartan-II's and wanted my medical insight on how to go about doing it since I helped Halsey with the original medical screenings for the first candidates and because of my work on the augmentation procedures for Beta and Gamma company"

Peter frowned at this "Third class? What happened to the Second? Hell, since when was there ever a second class of Spartan-II's?"

"Classified" Agnes said a she glanced at Peter with a look in her eye that said to leave it alone for the time being "But let's just say, ONI had once again underestimated the Covenant"

Peter grimaced at this before he nodded "Roger that..."

A somewhat tense silence settled in the room as Agnes examined more of Peter's charts and asked him a few more questions pertaining to his health that she hadn't already. Was he eating enough, has his appetite changed, is he getting enough sleep, were there any lingering pains or aches from the Rebirth augmentations.

"There something your looking for doc?" Peter asked after Agnes finished her mini integration.

"Peter, your quite possibly the physically most powerful human alive, in history even" Agnes said as she stared at Peter with a serious expression "Your physical strength outside of your armor alone is nearly on par with a Spartan-II in armor, speed too. It's a miracle that you don't tear your armor apart when ever you exert yourself too much"

Peter shrugged at this "Some modifications on my part and months of learning to not use my full speed and strength while wearing it. Though I'm told that the Mark-VI will be able to take my full strength and speed without me having to tinker with it or hold myself back... supposedly"

Agnes nodded at this "Well, let's hope you live long enough to use it"

"You and me both Doc" Peter said with a quiet laugh as Agnes jotted down a few notes before she started to head for the door.

"Now sit here, I have to go and fetch something from my new office. Shouldn't take long" Agnes said before she stopped at the door and turned towards Peter with a frown "And I mean it, stay here. I don't want you roaming around again because you got bored of waiting"

"Yes ma'am..." Peter snorted as he settled on to the bed and waited for the doctor to return.

Several minutes passed as Peter stared up at the ceiling, his mind wandering from one subject to another before he noticed that he wasn't alone in the room. Peter glanced at the doorway and was greeted to the sight of a beautiful red head in a black business suit looking at him with a bemused grin on her face.

"Мой паук…" she chuckled as she entered the room, the door closing behind her before securing.

"Agent Romanoff" Peter said with a nod towards the Russian descent as she approached his bed.

Captain Natasha Romanoff, one of, if not the best of ONI's agents when it comes to espionage, recon, data retrieval or termination and infiltration.

As far as Peter knew, which wasn't all that much when it came to her, she's been working for ONI since the 2490's and that she was inducted into some sort of black ops program called Project Orion back during the days of the Insurrection led by the late Colonel Robert Watts. Even though she looked only to be in her late twenties or very early thirties, she was almost three times that age. All the years she's been in cryo, the numerous added biological augmentations that ONI put her through after she left Project Orion and just generally keeping herself in good shape did wonders for her physique.

"How are your ribs?" she said as she glanced at some of the readings on a nearby screen.

"Fine, they should be fully healed in a few hours" Peter said with a simple shrug "They advise me to avoid getting into a fist fight with a Hunter for the foreseeable future"

"Something tells me your going to ignore that advise B-312" Natasha smirked a little at the young man that outside of his armor almost looked every bit the twenty two year old that he was supposed to be... almost.

"Hey, it's either that or a fuel rod round to the chest. I'll take my chances with a broken rib cage" Peter said with a snort.

The red head hummed as she read more of the medic's findings "So how's your new team?"

Peter quirked a brow at this "Fine, why?"

"No reason, you just seem very friendly with them" the ONI Spook commented.

"Well, their Spartans, why wouldn't I be friendly towards my own kind?" Peter said with a eye roll.

At this, Romanoff gave Peter a blank stare "Peter, I've seen your interactions with other Three's over the years along with Grey Team. You were as sociable and as friendly to them as a Engineer to other species that don't have something for them to tinker with"

Peter scowled at this "No I wasn't"

"Yes, you were" Romanoff said as she fixed Peter with a slightly harder stare "Even by Spartan standards you were highly withdrawn"

Peter adverted his eyes from the red head at this. He didn't think he was that bad, plus working for ONI meant working with ONI personnel and they weren't the most friendly bunch in the UNSC. In fact, Peter was surprised and even baffled by the sheer cut throat environment that it was. It was a wonder anything ever gotten done in the shady organization.

 _'Can see why so many people up and left them...'_ Peter thought as memories of several of his 'missions' for ONI came to mind.

"Have you been getting much sleep?" Natasha asked, her gaze on Peter with something that wasn't exactly concern but could still be classified as some sort of relative to it.

"...A little, yeah" Peter said with a small nod.

"Any more nightmares?" she asked gently.

"They come and go. Not as often but their still there" Peter sighed.

Natasha nodded at this before adverting her gaze "I should have gotten you out sooner"

"You did your best" Peter said with a faint grin "Even the infamous 'Black Widow' can't beat the slow agonizing hell that is paperwork. Especially ONI's"

"You'd be surprised by what I can and can't do" Natasha said with a small grin.

"Oh believe me, I know what you can and can't do" Peter said with a chuckle "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were a Spartan yourself"

Natasha smirked a little as she came and sat down on the edge of Peter's bed "ONI is asking me to become the handler for another Spartan. Some kid straight out of Gamma Company"

"They any good?" Peter asked.

"He's good, from what I've seen" Natasha said with a nod before she frowned "But I'm not taking the assignment"

Peter's eyes widened at this "Really, why?"

"I think my days as a handler, as a field agent for ONI, are coming to an end" Natasha said as she ran a hand through her red hair "I'm putting in a transfer back to Earth. Hopefully by November, I'll be back on the mother world"

"Your from Earth, right?" Peter said as he adjusted his seat on the bed "You were born in one of the countries there"

"Russia, Moscow" Natasha said with a grin as she looked at the wall with a distant look on her face "I haven't been back to Earth in almost thirty years. The closest I got was Mars"

"Jesus..." Peter said with a whistle "Bet a lot has changed since you've been gone"

"Most likely" Natasha said in agreement before she turned her attention back to Peter "Perhaps when you get there, I'll give you a tour. Best I can any how"

"What makes you think I'll be going to Earth?" Peter said with amusement and a bit of intrigue in his tone.

Though he's never set foot on Earth, let alone see the homeworld of humanity in person, he doesn't see a reason for him to be sent there. the UNSC would much rather he be out on the front lines, fighting back the Covenant armada as it slowly makes it's way through the Inner Colonies.

"At the rate the Covenant is moving, and the fact they've found Reach, it's only a matter of time until they locate Earth. If the UNSC is smart, which I know Lord Hood and General Hogan and Major General Strauss are, they'll be calling back all surviving Three's and Two's to re-enforce their defenses" Natasha stated.

Peter sighed at this "Not how I hoped my first trip to Earth would be, but beggars can't be choosers in this day and age I guess... still would have preferred to visit Earth because I wanted to, not because I was told to"

"Maybe when this war is over, and if we and Earth survives, you can" Natasha said.

"But would ONI allow it?" Peter said as he looked into Natasha's eye "What's to stop them from dragging me back under their thumb the moment this was is over and no one's looking?"

Natasha's answer, was silence.

...

 _"Doctor, I think your overreacting a bit too much"_

"To think that ONI would actually have the gull to make them without me!" Halsey snapped, barely paying attention to Cortana's words as she studied the information on the data drive that the team of 'Spartans' had recovered "God only knows what short cuts ONI took with their recruitment"

Cortana sighed at this _"Doctor-"_

"And what's worse, they've outfitted them in the Mark-V!" Halsey said as she turned towards the advance A.I. with a frown "My Spartans armor isn't even ready for field testing yet! How the Hell did ONI not only get several variants manufactured but have them already equipped?"

 _"Well, ONI did say that they would handle the testing for you before you decided to out fit the Spartans, Doctor"_ Cortana pointed out as she folded her arms across her holographic chest _"Or maybe they've been running a manufacturing of their own Mjolnir armor paced with yours since the beginning. I mean, remember when you found out that they've been supplying ODST squads with that advance set of SPI armor? With the prototype shielding you've spent years developing?"_

"Yes..." Halsey said with a sigh as she pinched the ridge of her nose "Though now I'm beginning to think it wasn't ODST's they were outfitting, but this apparent second group of 'Spartans'... I don't see ONI going through that much trouble to outfit a bunch of ODST's that are as valuable to ONI as a paper cup of coffee is to me"

Cortana frowned at the way Halsey said 'Spartans' _"You don't think their as good as the Two's? From the recordings we saw, they seemed every bit as capable as the others. The one Spartan, Six, despite his injuries and damage to his armor was able to keep pace with Spartan-052"_

"Yes... I noticed" Halsey said as her gaze drifted to another screen that held the recordings of this 'Noble Team' and their actions during the siege of Sword Base. She'll give the 'Spartans' credit, they seemed capable and well trained and from what she saw, Jorge had no qualms working with them and his performance didn't seem to be suffering for it "Doesn't mean I have to like it Cortana..."

 _"Of course"_ the advance A.I. said with a nod while internally she was confused by Halsey's distaste for these Spartans _'Dose she dislike them because their ONI's or because she has no control or influence over them like she does her own Spartans?'_

Cortana knew better then to voice such things, but she found it hard to believe that Halsey was being this petty over something so trivial. Yes the Spartan-II program was her's, but when it came down to it, the Spartans, which fell under the ORION Project, which in itself was part of the long running Project Phoenix, the successor to the legendary Project Rebirth that created the very first Super Solider, Steve Rogers, belonged to the UNSC and ONI, which in turn belonged to the United Earth Government.

 _'I hate to say this Doctor, but the only thing you can legitimately claim as yours from the Spartan-II project is the Mjolnir armor'_ Cortana thought as she watched Halsey return to studying the information retrieved from the relay outpost.

"Have you made a decision yet?" Halsey asked suddenly, causing Cortana to quirk her heat the woman.

 _"About?"_

"Which Spartan you'll be paired with" Halsey said as she glanced at the A.I.

 _"I've narrowed it down to three possible candidates_ " Cortana said before she brought up four small holographic images on Halsey's table "Spartan-117, Spartan-104, and Spartan-058"

Halsey nodded at the names "John, Frederic and Linda"

 _"Out of all of their fellow Spartans, they each posses something rather unique that sets them apart_ " Cortana said with a nod " _Though I think that I may have to cross 058 off my list soon. I don't think she and I would get along too well"_

"What makes you say that?" Halsey said with a raised brow.

 _"She's too quite for my tastes. Even by Spartan standards she's quiet_ " Cortana said with a smirk _"And when has a sniper ever liked someone talking in their ear all the time?"_

"A fair point, though I think you underestimate her ability to adapt to working with an A.I. such as yourself" Halsey said before she returned her attention back to her work when her terminal made a sound "Now let's see what we have here..."

Cortana watched as Halsey went back to work before she shut off her holographic projection to continue her research into Fred and John's profiles... and that of the 'other Spartans'. If worse came to worse, she could always plead innocent by arguing that she was instructed to study the Spartans and their various missions to choose a partner and she had no idea that ONI had apparently made a new batch of Spartans, without Halsey's knowledge or influence.

Cortana shook her head at this _'Why does that sound so much better than the reality of when this catches up with me?'_

And with that, she began her search on these illusive, unknown Spartans...

...

* * *

And done.

Next chapter, Peter and Jun investigate a mysterious dark zone...


End file.
